Requisition
by Cheerful Regression
Summary: AU. Brothels are businesses that are privately-owned, but government-mandated in the hopes of decreasing public crime. Anyone can be claimed for service and people can be sent there to disappear. SasuNaru. Warnings and full summary inside.
1. Naruto Part 1

Full Summary:

AU. Brothels are businesses that are privately-owned, but government-mandated in the hopes of decreasing public crime. Anyone can be claimed for service and people can be sent there to disappear. Anyone can use them on a sliding-scale fee. Anything can be done other than murder. It's not a nice way to live. But it's a business. And a place to hold secrets.

This is a modern AU, but it's also an alternate reality.

I really wanted to take an in-depth look at the way brothels are run and pedophilia rings. I've read other brothel stories, but I've found that people seem to really mix up the concepts of brothels with that of geisha.

Funny note: I went back over all of the rules and regulations of this site, reading everything. There is no rule asking us to put disclaimers on chapters. So I won't.

Unbeta'd

**Warnings: Abuse, rape, pedophilia, violence, language. Sexual situations are described, but not graphic.**

Lots of pairings. The main one is Sasuke and Naruto. Others will show up, there are going to be a lot of familiar names here.

* * *

**Chapter 1:** Naruto

* * *

**Requisition Class B**: Kid on the street. Discovered sleeping by the owner and brought back for entrance.

* * *

1.

The building wasn't half as big as the buildings that Naruto was used to sleeping next to. It looked cleaner as well. The car stopped and then went completely still as the man pulled the keys from the ignition. "C'mon kiddo," the man said, still in that friendly voice as he took a firm hold on Naruto's wrist.

Naruto hesitated as they approached the front doors. He was always shooed and chased away from storefronts that didn't want him ruining their displays. The man ignored Naruto's hesitation, almost pulling him off his feet. "This way, kiddo. How would you like a nice meal?"

Naruto's stomach clenched in response. Food was hard to come by. Edible food even less so. He nodded his head and followed the man inside of the building.

There was a reception area and a man looked up from the appointment book and then he looked down at Naruto. "Good, you found one," he said.

The man holding Naruto still nodded. "He'll clean up nicely too. You can start scheduling him in two days."

"Excellent," the man behind the desk said and pulled up another book, "Get me a picture soon."

The entryway was wooden and small. There were bathrooms on either side and a staircase that led to the second floor. Naruto got a quick glance around to see long corridors with windowless doors each marked with a different symbol. Then he was dragged up the stairs and through another door.

Naruto suddenly found himself facing a woman with short hair and a clipboard. "Oh!" she squealed, "What a little angel!"

She bent forward and took Naruto's chin in her hands. He shut his eyes, unused to the feeling of soft hands gentle against his skin.

"You think he'll work?" the man asked.

"Absolutely," the woman said instantly, "He's gorgeous."

"He's from the streets. I found him on South Faidley by Phillips Jewelers. No parents or siblings around."

Naruto opened his eyes as the hand instantly left his face and the woman began scribbling information down on her clipboard. "Got it, Roberts," she said, "I'll have the application processed by this afternoon and you can send it to Umino for clearance."

"Good. See you, Naruto," Roberts said as he left.

"Bye," Naruto said with a bit of a wave.

"Okay, Naruto," the woman said brightly, "Let's go ahead and get you cleaned up a bit first."

Naruto nodded. She led him to a tile bathroom and directed him to take off his clothing and throw it in a large bin. He did so uncomfortably under the bright lights and the strictness of her gaze.

"Step under that nozzle," she directed again.

He complied and she pressed a button and water hit him so suddenly that he cried out. It was warm and pleasant, but unexpected. The woman shouted to him again over the noise of the running water, "Rub the stuff in that bottle over your hair and your skin."

It seemed to take forever. He was clumsy, having no memory of ever using soap or shampoo or anything like it. He would sponge his face and hands off when he got near enough to puddles, but clean water was too precious to waste on skin. The luxury of this place was unimaginable and he kept his mouth open to catch some of the water as it dripped from the nozzle.

The water suddenly stopped and Naruto was left standing, watching the clear water swirl into the drain below him. "There you go," the woman said with a smile, "Nice and clean. Now come here and we'll get you dressed."

He walked over to her and she led him down the hall a ways to a closet. She gave him a clean towel and after seeing him struggle with it for a moment, she got to her knees to help him dry off completely. "Doesn't it feel good to be clean, Naruto?" she asked with that nice smile.

"Yeah," he said and smiled back.

She took hold of his chin again, but this time her hold was tighter. "Open up."

After a startled moment he opened his mouth and she sighed in relief. "You've still got good teeth," she took the towel then and ruffled his still drying hair, "Poor thing, you didn't eat much, did you?"

"No," he said, "Is there any food here?"

"In a little while. First you've got to get dressed," she examined him then with a practiced eye, "Skinny little guy. This will do."

She handed him a soft cloth shirt, blue, and something like pajama pants. The clothing hung off of him a bit, but wearing them was the most incredible sensation. The woman held out her hand to him and he took it with a smile.

In her office she picked up that clipboard again. "So your name is Naruto?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Do you know your last name?" she asked.

He nodded, "It's Namikaze," he said clearly.

The woman stopped then and looked at him. Her gaze turned suddenly thoughtful and the end of her pen hovered near her mouth. "Do you remember your mother's name?" she asked him.

"Um. No…"

"Do you remember anything?"

"She um, she had red hair."

"Red hair," the woman repeated and then she turned and started typing quickly on her computer. The screen filled with several copies of articles along with some pictures. The woman stared at them for a moment with just a second of indecisiveness.

Then she laughed and swung her chair around to look at Naruto. "Oh you silly kiddo, that's not the right name."

"What?" he asked startled.

"Your last name is Uzumaki."

"But it's _always_ been Namikaze," Naruto protested.

The woman's gaze became ever so slightly sharper. "Whoever told you that Naruto?"

"I- I've just always known…"

"Your records right here tell me that you are Naruto Uzumaki," she said pointing at the computer screen.

Naruto couldn't read what it said, but it looked mostly like pictures. One of the people had red hair. "Is that my mom?" he asked suddenly excited and pointing.

The woman nodded. "And it says right here that her name is Uzumaki."

"Naruto Uzumaki," Naruto said slowly to himself as he gazed harder at the picture. "Do you know where she is? Can I see her?"

"I'm afraid your parents are dead, Naruto," the woman said, pressing a button so that the screen went blank.

"They are?" He had always wondered if that's why they weren't around.

The woman nodded.

"How did they die?"

The woman smiled sadly, "In a car crash, of course."

"A car crash?"

"Cars are very dangerous things, Naruto. Lots of people get killed in them."

She picked up her clipboard and her pen descended. "Naruto Uzumaki. Let's see, you look like you're about five or so. Abandoned with no memory of parents and no next of kin to claim him. Nearing starvation and arrived in poor condition."

She pulled that page off and moved to the next, mumbling under her breath. "Application for Fulfiller, male in the four-to-nine range. Blond hair, blue eyes, thin build. Submissive but unwilling. Needed for influx of demands for the _young innocent _type. Likelihood of injury mild to severe. Likelihood of accidental death is 3.6 on the scale."

She turned and grabbed a calculator with many complex screens and options. After several minutes she turned back to her clipboard. Page three. "Fulfillment for an additional 2.8% of clientele, projected profit increase of 4.8% in the current year."

She stopped then and smiled at Naruto. "You're going to make a lot of money this year. Bonuses all around."

"Money?" he asked, slightly excited. He'd seen the things that people could buy with money before. It was amazing.

"Lots of it," she grinned. There was the sound of her scrawling her name at the bottom and initialing the other pages, mostly checklists with annotations. "Time to send it to Umino," she said, taking his hand again.

They walked down the hall to a fax machine and Naruto watched in confused fascination as the machine swallowed the papers and then spit out two copies. "We've got to make copies," she told him, "Record-keeping is my specialty."

She then led Naruto to a small, white room with lots of interesting and foreign objects. There was a skeleton on a table. It looked too small to be a human, Naruto thought, maybe it was the skeleton of a baby.

"Wow, I haven't seen one this young in awhile," a voice said.

Naruto looked up to see a woman with brown hair pulled neatly away from her face. "Yeah, well we need some younger ones, desperately," the other woman said, "They keep growing up. And demand sometimes changes, you know?"

"That's the truth," the new woman said. She turned back to Naruto. "I'm Dr. Lawrence. Time to do an exam."

The other woman stood at the doorway casually writing down the notes that Dr. Lawrence kept saying.

"He's average healthy height, but several pounds underweight… feels like there was a break in his ankle at some point, most likely a couple of years ago… There's some odd scars on his face. Six of them, but they're identical and symmetrical. He's had them for years… His eyes are in great shape, ears as well… no visible malformations."

She had him take off his clothing then.

"The color of the blood is good, but it'll take a few hours for a further analysis. The urine is clear, good sign for his kidneys, it will take a bit longer for the full results. He's a virgin and penetration will be violent. He'll need to be brought back for stitches every time."

The woman at the door sighed. "That's going to be complicated. Can you give him some blood thinners?"

"Not blood thinners," Dr. Lawrence said, "But I can give him some hemoglobin supplements that will mostly block bleeding. It will make it more painful, however, since the muscles will take the brunt of it. And some of the customers want blood."

"Well, he's meant to be unwilling. So it's fine. Go ahead and start him on the supplements. What sort of food should we start him on?"

Dr. Lawrence looked back at Naruto who was watching them with confused and slightly worried eyes. He had put his clothes back on, even without her saying anything. Poor kid. "Keep him away from solids for now. Just use applesauce and mashed potatoes mixed with the vitamins. Watered down milk. Very small rations at first, or else he will get very sick. And keep him away from any spices of any kind until he's off of the supplements."

"Awesome. I'll take him away now. See you later, Lea," the woman said.

"Bye Sherry. See you soon, Naruto," Dr. Lawrence said.

"Bye Dr. Lawrence," Naruto said as he was led out of the room.

Sherry took him back down the stairs where she handed one copy of the papers to the receptionist. "Still need the photo," he called.

Sherry waved her hand, "He needs to be dressed for the part!" she called back.

They finally let him eat. Warm potatoes that tasted like heaven in his mouth and he closed his eyes to enjoy the sensation, startled when he realized that he'd eaten all of it. Sherry was gone and he hadn't seen her leave. A quiet, but smiling attendant took him to another room and gently cut his hair so that it no longer hung everywhere. A clean orange shirt with a blue swirl, brown shorts and little shoes.

"Beautiful," the attendant said and snapped a few pictures.

Naruto blinked at the flash of the digital camera. He'd never been in front of one before. "Okay, hon, take off the shirt and hold your arms out to the sides."

After Naruto pulled his shirt back on again he moved closer to the attendant. "What's going on? What are you doing?"

"Well see," the attendant said, pressing the button to view the previous pictures with an air of professional satisfaction, "we are cleaning you up and getting the paperwork done so that you can legally live here. You'd like to live here wouldn't you?"

Naruto's eyes widened, "I'd get to eat every day?"

"And sleep in a bed at night, too," the attendant said, turning a smiling face to Naruto who returned it eagerly.

"A real bed, inside," he exclaimed.

"Listen, I'm going to go upload these to the system, and you are going to go with Therese," the attendant said while pressing a button, "and she's going to take you to the play room."

Therese had soft hands and sad eyes. "Are you ready to go play?" she asked him.

Therese showed him how to play with some of the toys in the room. He was delighted by the miniature cars and the animal replicas. Therese noticed that he took a shine to a spotted, stuffed frog and he made it interact with all of the other objects. The children's books confused him.

He turned back to her, still holding the frog in his arm. "You've gotta lot of toys. Are there other kids here?"

"Yes," she said, ruffling his hair, "but they keep growing up. So we keep getting new ones."

* * *

2.

The receptionist looked with satisfaction at the new entry into their system. They had hard-copies of course, but customers were much more comfortable with their computer-based entries. They simply showed up, narrowed down their categories until they came to the picture and profile of the person that they wanted and then hit enter. Of course, they could add any specialties that wished for, braids, ribbons, chains, masks. Once the information was entered they were given a number and the receptionist was given the other number.

He was an excellent receptionist. Everything ran smoothly, he kept their schedules running beautifully, he matched cyclical clients and scheduled them ahead of time and he was nearly always correct. His ability to match clients with fulfillers was flawless.

The clients would ask sometimes, instead of going through the computer.

It would be a meek, young man that came through and timidly requested a twelve-year-old female with black hair and red socks. Or the confident blond that always walked in and would ask for 'whatever was hot'. The man insisted that he had no preference, but the receptionist noted that he always seemed most pleased with younger fighters.

The newest entry was going to alleviate some pressure. Their current youngest boy was now nearing the age of ten and he looked it. There was a significant difference in age brackets and the boy was now in the tween ages instead of a mere child. And so when clients came in asking for a little boy and they were given him, he ended up with many injuries. Unsatisfied, and sometimes satisfied, clients were often violent. The boy had a nice face and would serve well in the older age group, and the receptionist would rather not let him be scarred into the extreme kink section.

The new kid was going to be popular. Almost all requests for young boys came with blond and the boy was certainly blond. He seemed sweet enough and small enough and he was certainly new enough. Granted he probably wouldn't be able to perform any of the consensual fantasies any time soon, but there was still a lot that he could do.

According to the report, however, Dr. Lawrence suggested one of the consensual fantasy clients first, if not the bondage. And for every appointment he would need to be taken to the infirmary. She said not to let him work more than two clients a day for the first month. Luckily, Dr. Lawrence was a doctor hired by the establishment and was not a government appointed one so he was under no obligation to follow her instructions.

He scheduled Uzumaki for four jobs. He wasn't cruel, just efficient. Blow jobs wouldn't hurt the kid too much, just his throat. And it would be a good introduction to what things were going to be like. He scheduled four more for the following day. It was good business to get the kid's name and face out and about. Money was money was money.

* * *

3.

Therese felt a buzz from her phone and stood up. "Come on Naruto, it's time to go to sleep."

"In my bed, right?" he said excitedly, dropping the frog and grabbing her hand.

Therese opened her phone and looked at the screen which read _48_. "Yes. And you get to share it with a friend too."

"A friend?"

"Yeah, a friend who will sleep next to you and keep you company, so you won't get lonely in the night. We just need to stop off at the nurse's, okay?"

"Kay."

Naruto wasn't sure exactly why he suddenly felt afraid when they entered the room. It was white and it was silver. Things glinted in the shadows.

"Umino approved his application, so he needs to be secured."

The man was startling. He looked normal, but his expression was a bit off. "Scrawny little thing," he said, grabbing Naruto's arms and placing his wrists in cuffs. The cuffs automatically tightened and the man pulled out a large needle.

"Don't worry, the needle makes it so you won't feel a thing," Therese said.

Naruto watched the needle disappear into his flesh and then he blanked out.

* * *

There was originally more for this chapter, but that made it _really_ long, so I'm breaking it into two parts. So chapter 2 is almost completely ready.

What did you think? Should I continue it?


	2. Naruto Part 2

Here is Chapter 2, which is shorter because it IS the continuation of chapter 1. I actually could have had this out much sooner, since I technically had it written at the time of the first posting. But I was waiting to find out if there was interest in this story (ie. reviews). I sent out the replies to the people I could, and anonymous reviewers, I'm going to post replies on my profile. That's the best way I can figure out how to do it.

Eek, I'm hesitant to even POST this.

**Warnings: The same ones in the previous chapter still apply, but I'm emphasizing. This chapter describes scenes of rape between children and adults. It is non-graphic, but it is also quite clear. Very disturbing content.  
**

Summary: AU. Brothels are businesses that are privately-owned, but government-mandated in the hopes of decreasing public crime. Anyone can be claimed for service and people can be sent there to disappear. Anyone can use them on a sliding-scale fee. Anything can be done other than murder. It's not a nice way to live. But it's a business. And a place to hold secrets.

* * *

**Chapter 2:** Naruto

* * *

**Requisition Class B**: Kid on the street. Discovered sleeping by the owner and brought back for entrance.

* * *

1.

The man was very gentle. He told Naruto to have a seat on the bed and he smiled as he covered Naruto's hand in his. "Your name is Naruto?" the man asked.

Naruto nodded, looking down at where their hands rested on the bed. "My name is Tom. It's nice to meet you. It's your first day working here?"

Naruto nodded again. He inched back a bit, but Tom still had his hand anchored to the bed. "What did they tell you is going to happen?" Tom asked.

"They just said to do what you said," Naruto said uneasily, "I don't really know what that means…"

Tom raised his other hand and ran it over Naruto's head, stroking his blond hair. "I'm just going to give you some instructions, Naruto, and you have to follow them. Do you understand?"

"Well, I understand _that_," Naruto said, still uneasy, "but I don't know what that _means_."

Tom stood up and walked over to the bedside drawer. He opened it and pulled out a small black device and brought it back for Naruto to see. "Do you know what this is?"

"No."

"I'm going to put this in your mouth and it's going to stretch your mouth wide open. Like going to the dentist. There are grooves for your teeth so that when you bite down neither you nor I will get hurt."

Naruto backed away. "I don't want that in my mouth."

"I understand that new things can seem scary," Tom said, "but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't at least try it."

"I don't want that!" Naruto repeated, getting off the bed and backing towards the wall.

Tom had longer legs and was in front of him instantly, kneeling down to face him. "I'm a good man, I'm always gentle with the new ones. It'll be fine."

Naruto didn't know what that meant, there was just a panicky feeling rising inside him. "I want to leave!"

Tom used a hand to hold his chest and then kissed him, full lips pressed to Naruto's small mouth. Naruto choked and tried to pull away, but Tom used his other hand to forcefully keep his head in place. When he stuck his tongue in Naruto's mouth, Naruto panicked and bit down.

Tom pulled away and rearranged his hands. "I don't like pain, Naruto, I want both of us to have a good time here."

He pressed his fingers against the insides of Naruto's cheekbones, forcing the boy's mouth open and then he let the drops of blood from his tongue mingle into Naruto's mouth. Naruto gagged.

Tom used Naruto's slightly dazed distraction to carefully pull the boy's shirt off. He then simply picked Naruto up and took him over to the bed, laying him down and brushing back his hair. He picked up the black device.

"Don't try to fight, it'll make it hurt."

Naruto struggled and spit, but it only made him choke and the device made his jaw strain until his eyes teared. "Aw Naruto, it's okay, you don't need to cry. We're going to have a good time," Tom said.

And then there was something in Naruto's throat and he was gagging and he couldn't breathe and it kept going and going and going until he was choking and Tom was gripping his shoulders tightly. When his throat was clear he coughed and sputtered on something wet and breathed heavily, just trying to get his breathing back under control.

It took Tom a few minutes before he could speak again. "You did such a good job, Naruto," he said, kissing the boy on the forehead. "And it wasn't bad. See, you don't have a mark on you. I'm proud of you."

Tom carefully extracted the black device and then rubbed Naruto's sore and stretched lips soothingly. "You still have that beautiful face, darling."

Naruto pulled away from Tom harshly and glared at him. "What was that?" he tried to yell, but his voice didn't have quite enough force.

Tom smiled, "It's just an easy little blow-job."

He finished dressing then and went back to kiss Naruto's forehead again. "I'm going to make another appointment with you. I love sweet little boys."

An attendant came in shortly after Tom left. Naruto simply stared at her. "Are you okay, honey?" the attendant asked kindly, "The first time is always a bit of a shock."

Naruto suddenly burst into tears. "What happened?" he cried.

"Oh, honey, that was a client," the attendant said, pulling out a moist towel to wipe Naruto's face. "He thought you were beautiful and he wanted to be with you."

"My mouth hurts!" Naruto continued, tears still streaming.

"You'll get used to it, honey. You're a strong boy. Here, press your mouth against the towel."

"I wanna go!"

"I can take you to the block now. Is that where you would like to go?"

Naruto nodded as he pressed the cold cloth to his lips. The attendant took his hand and used a card to unlock the door. Outside of it, she pressed a button and the screen turned orange.

They passed through the reception area where a man was browsing through photos on the computer. "How'd he do?" the receptionist called.

"He's a bit shaken up, but the client was quite pleased," the attendant answered, still holding onto Naruto's hand.

The man at the computer turned around and his eyes landed on Naruto, whose lips were still swollen red and the remnants of tears were still visible. "What just happened with him?" the man asked.

"He just had his first client," the receptionist explained, smiling kindly at Naruto. Naruto squeezed the attendant's hand tightly.

"Wait, let me see him," the man said and then he stepped down to peer into Naruto's eyes. "Put him on my list."

"Yes sir," the receptionist said and started typing.

It was Naruto's first entrance to the Block. He was in Block A for the youngest, though this actually extended until the age of fourteen. There was a middle room with various chairs and couches. There was a bookshelf to one side, playing cards, and a few toys. There were several doorways that led outwards, though none had doors.

"This is where you will stay unless one of us comes and gets you," the attendant said. "You can technically choose any room to sleep in, but I believe most of them are already full. There's a girl here about your age that's sleeping alone, so you should join her. It's over there in room 7.

"You share this common room and all of the things inside of it. We try to keep it well-stocked for all of you, if there's something you need then please ask one of us and we'll see what we can do. There is a call button in each room, you must use it if you want medication or anything else. Medication can only be dispensed by the attendants.

"All meals are personalized and it is very important that you not share or take food from others. There are supplements and vitamins in them and the nutrients are directly specified for each of you."

Naruto discovered that he was biting the cloth pressed against his lips. His stomach hurt. "I don't wanna be here. Just let me leave, okay?"

The attendant smiled gently and ran her fingers over his head. "You just need to get used to it. Things aren't so bad. You have free-time now and you have a warm bed and other children to play with. If you need anything, just ask."

There were a pair of girls sitting at a table in the corner and they were watching him with interest. "Is he new?" one called out.

The attendant nodded. "Just finished with his first client."

One of the girls came forward. "That's not fun. Come play with us, kay?" she said to Naruto.

He could see that they were coloring in pictures with crayons. The attendant gave him a gentle nudge and he followed the girl back to the table. It was hard to concentrate.

He fought the next time a worker came to escort him to a room. "Don't fight," one girl said, "It just makes it hurt worse."

This client didn't bother to introduce himself, and he pinned Naruto to the bed in order to fit the device in his mouth. Naruto bit against the grooves so hard that there were indentations on his gums. The man seemed to be having a good time and as he finished he left a nice trail of scratches on Naruto's shoulders.

After the man left, Naruto also fought the attendant that came to get him. In response he was taken immediately to the room of his next appointment and locked in for the next hour.

This man was completely different.

He looked down at Naruto who stared at him with hatred. The man's mouth curled into a sneer. "I'm not using one of those dumb fucking mouth rings. You're lucky that I'm not going to just fuck you up the ass right now."

"I'll bite you!" Naruto said, pressing his back against the mattress from where he was huddled on the floor.

The man laughed, "And this is what I would do in return."

Naruto was completely blinded as the man's boot solidly connected with his face. His chin was knocked back and his nose was bleeding hard. Naruto screamed. The man shivered and moved closer. "I'll break every tooth out of your mouth if I have to. Will you be a good boy or not?"

Naruto couldn't answer with the amount of blood spilling down his throat. The man kicked him again, this time in the stomach. Naruto let out another sound and fell backwards. "No, no," the man said, grabbing the front of Naruto's bloodstained shirt, "You get on your knees to suck me off. Now are you going to be a good boy or not?"

Naruto opened his mouth, but still no sound could come out. The man slapped him hard and grabbed his face again. "Are you my good boy?" he demanded again.

Naruto nodded.

"Now give me your hands and open your mouth."

* * *

2.

The attendant took Naruto to the nearby infirmary. Modern techniques were miracle workers. Short of amputations they could heal just about anything. When he walked out, there was little more than bruising on his cheek and a shocked look in his eyes. The attendant delivered him directly to one of the mattresses in the block and he laid there until his final appointment.

He wanted to scream. Getting nearer and nearer to the door was killing him slowly.

The client asked him his name and then gave directions. He was far gentler than the previous man, but it was difficult because he seemed to want Naruto to take charge and Naruto didn't know what he was doing. It took a long time with the man occasionally getting impatient.

He passed one of the girls that he'd been coloring with as she was escorted down the hall. "See you later Naruto," she said.

Instead of being taken immediately back to the block he was taken to a shower room where he could clean himself and change. His meal this time was applesauce. The taste of it on his tongue made him slightly queasy.

"You have to eat it all, kiddo. And you're getting potatoes tonight. How does that sound?"

Naruto didn't answer, he just tried to keep eating.

His bedmate was a little girl and she was very meek, but very clingy. She wanted to sleep near him and she'd wake up at the slightest shifting.

* * *

3.

"How's he been doing with the four daily appointments?"

The receptionist nodded while looking over his data entries. "He's been handling it. The customers are very happy with him, and we've started getting higher offers for more than just oral with him."

"He's been here, what, two weeks now?"

"We have about fifteen clients willing to pay double the normal cost. We haven't had a little boy for use in a long time. Dr. Lawrence said that the supplements will have fully entered his system."

"He's five."

"Are you planning on waiting until he's older? You realize what this business is, right?"

Roberts sighed. "Fine, start scheduling him for more. Take it down to three a day, nightly trips to the infirmary, and the clients pay double for the next three months for him."

* * *

4.

"What are you doing?" Naruto asked in a slightly panicked tone.

Tom smiled down at him. "You have a lovely mouth, and you've been using it so well lately. Now we are going to have sex, Naruto. "

"What are you doing?" Naruto said, trying to get up then from where he was pressed beneath Tom's form.

Tom patiently rearranged and moved limbs until he had Naruto firmly in place and Naruto felt the sharpest and worst pain he ever felt before. There was a moment of frozen silence and then Naruto screamed and began struggling harder which only made the pain increase. Tom stayed still and the from the expression on his face it seemed that he was getting pleasure.

Naruto finally bit his lip and stopped moving, trying to lessen the pain, make it go away somehow. And that's when Tom started moving, which brought a whole new level of pain. Naruto felt his skin tear and everything burned and Tom kissed his eyelids and nose and mouth.

* * *

5.

Constant trips to the infirmary. He was only five and he couldn't handle that type of interaction.

And then it turned into a rhythm that was more like a cycle, something that held itself together, and there was a semblance of existence of some slight normalcy that everyone participated in. It was a shared hallucination of every child in that block that things were okay.

* * *

**End of Chapter 2, which is actually the extension of Chapter 1. Setting is now established and you should look for the entrance of Sasuke in the next chapter.**

**I know, I know. Pedophilia is disgusting, but that's why I tried to make it as honest as possible, though looking at it without having a nightmarish quality in the details. Don't worry that's _not_ what this whole story is about. It is not meant to be gratuitous in any way. But I needed to set up the setting to give everyone the understanding of what is going on.**

**I hope this didn't scare a lot of readers away...**

**Please don't read and run! Drop me a line, please (even if it's to tell me how effed up I am). It lets me know what I should be working on (and I mean projects). Update speed is dictated by reviews.**

-**CR**


	3. Sasuke

Summary: AU. Brothels are businesses that are privately-owned, but government-mandated in the hopes of decreasing public crime. Anyone can be claimed for service and people can be sent there to disappear. Anyone can use them on a sliding-scale fee. Anything can be done other than murder. It's not a nice way to live. But it's a business. And a place to hold secrets.

* * *

**Chapter 3: **Sasuke

* * *

**Requisition Class D**: Individual under government order. Hidden from sight and government mandated. Brought for entrance.

* * *

1.

There was no display of niceties when they brought in the black-haired boy. Naruto was passing through the corridor and he saw one of the male attendants walking by, holding the boy over his shoulder, while the kid cried with eyes wide-open. There was sound coming from him, but no words, and after a moment Naruto continued back to the Block as the attendant continued carrying the kid up the stairs.

Naruto sat in his room by himself. Occasionally a passing worker leaned a head in and asked if he was alright. He shrugged and continued to sit on the mattress, leaning against the wall.

The rooms weren't particularly bad, they were just very bare. There was a mattress and box-springs in each of the rooms, and the walls were painted a smooth white. The floor was cold tile, but the temperature was always mild. He could turn on the overhead light if he wanted, but for now he remained in the dark.

The girl that he'd been sharing a room with for over a month now had been killed by one of her clients. Killing was strictly against service policy, and the man who did it was now under surveillance. The point of these businesses were to give the potential killers and the deviants and those that liked to hurt, somewhere to go. If a client killed more than once, they would be detained by government officials and transferred for _treatment_. Killing once might be an accident, but twice made them officially dangerous.

All of the workers knew this. None of the clients did. No one outside of the business did.

Naruto had gotten attached to his friend. She had been requested fairly often, as was he, so they usually only saw each other at night. But then she would tell him her story and her fears. She'd been afraid of being killed before she could get out.

Information flowed openly among the workers and fulfillers. She'd been killed with a knife. The client got too caught up with what he was doing and made too many incisions. He apparently was so excited by all of the blood that he told the attendant (who hadn't noticed the girl had died) to charge from his account another two hours.

That had happened four days ago and Naruto still had trouble sleeping alone.

* * *

2.

Sherry needed assistance for the newest recruit. He alternately fought and cried and he didn't speak when she spoke to him, no matter how kindly. But there were few gaps in his information.

This recruit had been handed to them by the government, so the application was simply a formality. He was an unfortunate mistake, a leftover from what was supposed to be a complete extermination of a powerful political enemy. The rest of the family had been killed in a massacre one night ago, but it turned out that this one son had been elsewhere at the time. Now they needed to get him out of sight.

The massacre was big news, so the government stated that it was going to put the boy under government protection and that he would disappear from sight. There were already suspicions about the origin of the massacre.

It was true that the clan had been getting smaller every year, that their blood was becoming increasingly thin. That made _this_ the best time to strike. They had yet to replace some of their old ties with new alliances, and it left them unprotected.

The government officials used their sources within the media and made up some stories about the insanity that had clearly been running rampant in the family for generations. The campaign was going to be cruel and instant, and with any luck, the clan would fade into inconsequential memory, a simple bit of gossip.

But this kid hadn't been home. And the media had been the first to find out. So instead of wiping out everything all at once, all they had done was create a survivor. It was foolish and beyond careless, and it needed to be hidden from sight as soon as possible.

It was too dangerous to simply kill him. So he was being requisitioned for a mandated position within a government mandated establishment in a different city.

And this way, they'd be able to get pictures of him every year until the media finally lost interest in the kid and then they'd be able to kill him without any fear. So long as none of the clients learned his real name there was nothing to worry about. And it brought sadistic pleasure to those that had known the clan. If only his parents could have known what was going to happen to their little boy.

Sherry filled out his information easily, name was Sasuke Uchiha, age was 6, he was healthy and well cared for, his status was that of an orphan, with no siblings or next of kin. Placing him was going to be difficult. The kid was alternately struggling and crying. They didn't often get children from situations like these. She placed him under the category of _unwilling frightened_, but she figured that it would take some trials before they'd get a certain placement.

He struggled further when it came time to wash him and clothe him, so Sherry called for an attendant to give him a mild tranquilizer. The process was easier after that.

It was different for this kid. There were no pretenses about what he was doing here and therefore there was no reason for the segregation. He was taken to the doctor where his skin was opened so that the rods were grafted to his joints and sealed again. He sat submissively while his photos were taken. And then blacked out as they carried him away again.

* * *

3.

When he woke up it was to find that he was lying in a bed. Everything was dark and it was very quiet, just the sound of occasional movement. His head felt foggy, but he sat up and tried to look around. Everything was bathed in a dim blue light. The light wasn't from the room itself, but rather crept in from the open doorway.

Someone was breathing nearby him, who was breathing? Sasuke turned and looked at the shadowy shape. It was a boy, curled on his side, facing away. His hair reflected the dim light, and he was clearly no bigger than Sasuke.

He simply stared dumbly for a few minutes as his addled brain tried to process everything. There was something deep and dark that was threatening to emerge from his unconsciousness. The kid next to him shifted and opened his eyes. He blinked slowly and rubbed his eyes. He glanced immediately towards the door and seemed to relax slightly at the sight of no one. Then he finally turned to Sasuke.

"You're awake," he said.

Sasuke couldn't answer, he didn't have quite enough control yet.

"They brought you in in the evening. I saw you earlier, in the hall, when they were taking you up the stairs. You got one of the meds."

The blond boy's voice was hoarse and it sounded too rough to be simply from sleep. "So you're new then?"

Sasuke's head still wasn't working completely, but he nodded slightly.

"I'm Naruto. I've been here awhile now."

Sasuke ignored him and started trying to crawl out of the bed.

"You shouldn't do that," Naruto warned, "They just did the graft today and your elbows and knees and stuff…"

There was a pain of a thousand fine pins jamming lengthwise into his body at every joint. His muscles instantly constricted and he let out a gasp. "Here," the blond boy said, grabbing Sasuke's chest to pull him carefully back onto the mattress.

Naruto continuously pressed his cooler palms against the burning joints as he spoke, "You can't try to leave tonight. Just wait awhile first."

"But-" Sasuke managed, though his teeth were clenched tight for the residual pain in his joints, "I can't stay here. I need to go home."

"Do you have a home?" Naruto whispered.

They had told him that he didn't and he had seen some…

"I'm going to go home," Sasuke said.

"You have a mom and a dad?"

They had told him that he didn't. That they'd been killed. There had been something on the news.

"I need to go find them."

"Are they dead? My parents are dead. Are yours dead, or did they take them away from you?" Naruto asked.

An attendant appeared at the doorway then. "You're both awake," she commented.

"Hi Mona," Naruto said, sitting up and away from Sasuke, "he tried moving."

"That's a bad idea. I'm here because it's time for more medication, Sasuke," Mona said as she leaned over the trembling six-year-old and took his arm

"I want to go home," he said to her.

"Sasuke, there was a terrible murder at your home and you are safer here. Naruto's a good little boy and he's going to help take care of you," Mona located Sasuke's vein easily through the white flesh and she efficiently injected some pain medication.

"Is he going to have to work with clients too?" Naruto whispered to Mona.

She smoothed her hand over Naruto's upturned head and kissed his forehead. "This is what everyone does in order to stay here, remember? We've talked about this before."

"It hurts though…"

"Oh Naruto, don't worry. We take good care of you here. Don't you like me and the others?"

"Yeah. But I hate being in the rooms."

Sasuke was listening and watching through a haze.

"Well you better get back to sleep, Naruto, you've got appointments tomorrow. Do you want some sleeping pills?"

"No. I'll just watch him for awhile and make sure he's okay."

Mona pushed Naruto back and tucked both boys carefully in. "He'll be fast asleep, don't worry at all, kiddo. I'll see you at breakfast, right?"

"Yup."

Mona left the room and Naruto watched until he was sure she was away and then he moved close to Sasuke so his breath was hot against Sasuke's ear. "It hurts a lot. We'll get out of here. Just need to wait."

* * *

4.

Sasuke had never been beaten. He'd been spoiled as a child, given anything that he wanted, and had many people who paid a lot of attention to him. He hadn't turned into a snob yet, instead he was sweet. Obstinate and a bit bratty when things weren't going his way, but he was overall an interested child that loved his family. Kindergarten started for him in fall and he'd been accepted into a private school that seemed really nice when his mom took him on a tour to see the place. They'd gone shopping to get him fitted for uniforms and then she took him home and they went over the letters again.

So the first time that he was struck across the face he was shocked. His hand flew to his cheek and he tasted blood on the inside of his mouth. The man twisted a hand cruelly into his black hair and lifted him back to his feet to press their mouths together. They hadn't even gotten to the bed yet.

"Fucking beautiful," the man growled into his mouth, "So fucking beautiful…"

Naruto was gone when he was returned from the infirmary. He'd been lying on the bed, tears pouring down his cheeks when Naruto finally limped into the room about forty minutes later. "Hey Sasuke," he said, voice hoarser than it had been before, "I must've missed you in the infirmary. Shizune is a nice woman, isn't she?"

Naruto made his way to the bed and then crawled carefully and painfully toward the pillow and then put his head on the pillow beside Sasuke's and curled carefully on his side. "It gets better. Unless they want it to be worse. I guess…"

Sasuke raised his fists to his eyes to stifle the itchy, salty tears. "I want to go home," he mumbled, voice trembling.

Naruto sniffed then and pressed his head into Sasuke's shoulder. "Me too," he whispered. "We'll get out, okay. Both of us."

There was a pause before Naruto spoke again, his voice in an even fainter whisper, "I don't have a home. Can I go with you to yours?"

Sasuke took a wavering breath and nodded slightly. He moved slightly so that their heads were touching and they lay close together.

Then they let themselves wallow in their misery.

That was the one time, other than nights, that they visibly broke down in front of each other. The following day Naruto limped, like most of the kids in the Block did, into their room with a deck of cards. "One of the attendants taught me how to play War," Naruto said, "Wanna play?"

After four months Sasuke never cried in front of clients either. He couldn't stop his eyes from tearing up when there was extreme pain, but he didn't cry. That made him easier to classify and the receptionist and Sherry became much more comfortable with him. He made friends with Naruto only and took to simply staring down others that tried to speak to him. He wouldn't speak to the other kids, he treated the attendants with stiffness, no friendliness, and even then it was only when he had to or when he needed something.

They were beginning to give Naruto a bit of extra training then. He went from being unwilling to unwilling submissive, and they were trying to get him to start servicing those that were looking for 'consensual' children. The boy had a charm that drew clients to him.

They let Sasuke be their fighter. He wouldn't physically fight against the clients, the boy knew that he couldn't win and he had too much pride to fight so uselessly, but he was unwilling and resistant from start to finish. His injuries were always worse and every single session was immediately followed with a trip to the infirmary. And they had to throw out the sheets from every room he was in.

Granted, they usually had a lot of bloody sheets from all of the rooms.

* * *

5.

"Time for your one year checkup, Naruto," Sherry said with a grin as she retrieved him from the common area.

"So that means I'm six now, right?" Naruto said as he got to his feet and accepted her offered hand.

"I believe it does. How about a little cake after the exam?" she asked.

"Yeah!" he exclaimed, "And I'll save some for Sasuke."

"That sounds like a nice thing to do," Sherry said as they walked up the stairs.

Dr. Lawrence seemed exactly as she had the year before. "My, you've been growing!" she said as she flipped through his old folder.

Naruto shrugged.

"Not too much, I hope," Sherry said, "I don't want my little boy growing up too fast."

Dr. Lawrence was pleased with his weight and nodded approvingly at his height. His throat, eyes, ears, nose, and heart were all in fine condition. The full-body exam yielded no external scars and she made an appreciative sound. "Shizune is doing beautiful work. He's still in perfect condition."

"We can take him off of the hemoglobin supplements now," Dr. Lawrence said, "It _is_ going to increase bleeding when there are injuries, so let the receptionist know. The more violent clients must be notified of the change in levels for lethalness."

Sherry nodded. "I always take a copy of the records straight down to him. He'll take care of it."

"The notes from the attendants show that he's been on the anti-anxiety and anti-stressors consistently. His blood pressure is fine, so I don't think that his cortisol levels are too high, but I'm requesting that he be sent for further testing. We don't want to start having to deal with ulcers," Dr. Lawrence said, writing down notes in the folder before turning to Naruto and speaking directly.

"Do you get many headaches that aren't from being hit?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"Any pains that aren't from clients, are you waking up at nights with pain, any problems in the chest?"

He shook his head once again.

"Anything that you think I should know about?" she asked him.

"My teeth hurt," he said.

Sherry looked up from her notes and Dr. Lawrence frowned. "Your mouth looked fine," she murmured as she picked up her penlight.

Naruto obediently opened his mouth and waited while she shone the light and then pressed lightly on his gums and then a couple of teeth. Then she clicked off the light and considered him for a moment.

"Have clients been using jaw restraints a lot?" she asked.

"The black thing?" Naruto said, "Um. I don't think so. I don't know."

"What's wrong with his mouth?" Sherry asked.

Dr. Lawrence carefully felt along the outside of his mouth, following the curve of his jaw. "He's been biting down too hard. His jaw's no longer aligned."

"Can you fix it?" Sherry asked.

"How long has it hurt, Naruto?" Dr. Lawrence said.

"A long time."

"Why didn't you say anything sooner?" Sherry scolded.

"The attendants gave me pills that made it feel better," he said simply.

Dr. Lawrence sighed. "It's probably healed out of place," she said, "Take him to get x-rayed, but I'm almost positive that it's already healed."

"If it's healed then why is he still in pain?" Sherry asked.

"It clicks every time that he moves his jaw. It's out of alignment and it's going to ache worse and worse if it's not fixed."

Sherry frowned, "That's unacceptable. I don't want my little guy to have to deal with that. How do we fix it?"

"The first step would be to break his jaw again, and follow it up with surgical pins and wiring."

"Can Shizune do that?"

"No. Shizune takes care of surface wounds, and she can lightly graft bones back in place. He needs replacement and regeneration."

Naruto was zoned out by that point. He told them about the pain and they were going to take care of it for him. It was the way that things worked here. For some reason his mind drifted back to the girl that had been his roommate for awhile. If this was one year then it meant she'd been dead for a long time.

"Hey, did the man who killed Nalee kill anyone else?" he asked.

Both of the women turned to him. "What?"

"Nalee. Remember? She was my first person I shared a bed with," he said.

"Oh. Right," Sherry paused, "That man learned his lesson. It was an accident, after all. He still comes here a lot and he hasn't killed anyone else."

Naruto nodded. "What did you do with Nalee's body?" he asked.

"Well," Sherry said, "If there is a family waiting for them then we return the body to them. If there's no one there then we cremate- which means that we use fire to turn the body into ash- the bodies and we spread the ashes in a memorial garden out back."

"What's a garden?"

"It's a beautiful place outside with flowers and trees and bushes. There's usually some birds and squirrels around as well. It's very peaceful there and we take good care of it."

"Can I see it?" Naruto asked.

"Naruto, you know how the sensors work. You can't leave the building. When your service here is done, I promise that you'll be able to see it, okay?"

Naruto nodded again. It was a nice thought that Nalee was outside in a garden. She had been really scared of the dark. She'd told him that one night. Maybe there were lots of other people out there for her to be with and they were nice and didn't like pain or blood. He thought about asking, but Sherry and Dr. Lawrence were already talking again.

"So we'll have to call her in to take care of it. I hate calling her here, everyone from the government…they just make me _nervous_," Sherry said.

Dr. Lawrence shrugged. "It's either that or give him three months of recovery time. In which he can't take clients."

"I know. I'll call her in. It's just that I hate dealing with her."

"She's settled down, last I heard," Dr. Lawrence said, finishing her notes and shutting the folder, "Naruto, you can put your shirt back on now. I heard from Davis that her fiancé died, killed in some accident while they were out of town."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Davis and Michael and I were having lunch and he showed me the obit and everything. You've heard that her younger brother died several years ago. Apparently this one hit her pretty hard. Anyway, her skill is still as brilliant as ever."

"Huh," Sherry said thoughtfully. "It'll be interesting at least."

Sherry took him to the kitchens after that and pulled out a small white cake that fit in both of his hands. He grinned at her and held it carefully so that he'd be able to share it with Sasuke.

"When's my next client?" he asked.

Sherry took hold of his arm and began leading him back. The kids always walked slowly and she would have carried him, but it would hurt worse, the little ones were always sore. "There's no more this afternoon," she said, "We had to make sure that there would be enough time for the medical appointment."

Naruto's face stretched into a grin. "Really? I don't have to do anymore?"

"Not today," Sherry said squeezing his shoulder.

They passed by the reception desk and a sudden voice said, "Oh, I was hoping to see you."

Naruto looked up. Tom was standing there, he'd been selecting clients for appointments. Naruto saw his own picture on the screen.

"I heard that it's your one-year anniversary," Tom smiled, "Which they said is your birthday. So I have a present for you."

"A present?" Naruto repeated.

Tom nodded fondly and turned to the receptionist. "I'll give it to him now, since he's right here."

The receptionist nodded and took out a package from underneath his desk. Tom handed Naruto the gift, wrapped in rocket paper. Naruto stared at it for a moment and handed the little cake to Sherry. He carefully unwrapped it and opened the box. Inside was a brown teddy bear.

"Little boys should have something to sleep with at night, right?" Tom said.

The receptionist nodded. Naruto stared at the bear for a moment. Sherry put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. Naruto shifted his eyes up to Tom's face.

"Thank you," he said and hesitated. Then he walked forward and gave Tom a hug.

Tom smiled.

Sasuke was gone when Naruto returned and Naruto placed the cake carefully on the flat table he'd dragged in and then set the bear in the far corner of the room. They'd often use that table to play card games or set up dominoes. Naruto liked going out to the common area, but Sasuke didn't like to leave the room when he didn't have to. No one seemed to hold it against him.

Sasuke didn't return for almost an hour and when he did it was with a split lip and a heavy bruise on his left cheek. "Hi Sasuke," Naruto said.

Sasuke nodded in return. Naruto smiled, "I got a cake for my birthday. Wanna share it? I waited for you."

Sasuke didn't like sweet things. He limped over to sit next to Naruto and said thank you as he accepted his half. Then he ate every bite.

* * *

6.

The receptionist didn't want Naruto out of commission for another day so soon after his one year mark, so he scheduled Naruto for a grueling five jobs in the course of six hours and followed it immediately with the reconstruction surgery.

Sherry seemed unhappy as she retrieved Naruto from his final client and took him quickly to the wash room to clean up a bit. But instead of escorting him to the infirmary to see Shizune, she redirected him to the room that he'd been in only once before, during his first day in this place. He got that uneasy feeling again, the silver of the room was somehow frightening.

There was a busty woman in the room, dressed almost casually with her blonde hair pulled into uneven pigtails. There were dark circles under her eyes and she directed Sherry to place Naruto on a gurney without turning around. Naruto rubbed his eye tiredly, but couldn't shake the jittery feeling.

The woman turned around and froze. "Oh my god," she breathed.

"What?" Sherry asked tensely.

"He-" the woman physically shook her head, "It's nothing. He just reminded me of someone."

There were dark circles under her eyes and she looked pale. She didn't look very healthy, especially for a doctor.

"You look like you've been through the wringer, kid."

"I had five appointments today. What are you going to do?" Naruto said.

"Five appointments," the woman repeated, shooting a dirty look at Sherry.

Sherry set her lips. "It's the receptionist who sets up the appointments. He knows exactly what he's doing."

"You know that I write a report of this," the woman said, "You better have everything documented just in case you get a visitor."

There was the tone of a casual threat. Sherry bristled. "You know what this business is, what we do here. The government mandates that these establishments exist, and they mandate that we have fulfillers of all ages, sexes, and types to satisfy those deviants in society. Would you want to have predators out there, snatching children, killing more and more because they can't legally satisfy their needs?"

"My personal opinion is not a reflection of government standards, no," the woman said, "I like children."

"You think I don't?"

"You send them to be raped and beaten daily, for money."

Sherry's face tightened, "They would be here, under these circumstances, whether I am here or not. But since I am here, I can make sure that they get treated, that they are clean, that the pain only lasts so long, and that they are safe. We have the lowest mortality rate in this part of the city."

"Being able to do that is a side effect of your job, it's not the reason you're here," the woman said easily, and she moved much nearer to Naruto and examined his jaw line with her fingers and eyes. "I'm going to make you go to sleep and when you wake up, you're going to feel much better."

Then without waiting for any response she pushed a syringe into his skin and unconsciousness claimed him quickly.

* * *

**A/N.**

**Three guess as to who the woman is (ha, like it is completely and utterly obvious). Two guesses as to who she thought Naruto looked like.**

**Once again, thank you all so much for the reviews, I appreciate them so much. And a quick question, does _anyone_ like review replies? I just ask because I've gotten review replies and sometimes I don't even remember what it was for. Which is also why I keep the summary at the top of each chapter. **

**Anyway, update speed is completely dictated by the number of reviews. I've had this chapter written since before I posted the second chapter. And I'm half-way through chapter four, it should be done within a couple of days. Reviewing means so much to any author, even it's a quick one telling you that they want to see more. And even the ones that tell you what you don't like.**

**But thank you for staying this long!  
**

**And finally, I have additional characters that _are_ going to be added to the business. But I was wondering if I should add ones that aren't necessarily essential to the plot. I enjoy writing characters and I could actually intertwine them pretty easily. I won't tell who is going to be added, because I certainly shan't ruin the surprise. But is there anyone that would would brighten your day to see?**

**Review replies are coming out once I hear your opinion about them!**

**-CR.  
**


	4. Entrance

AU. Brothels are businesses that are privately-owned, but government-mandated in the hopes of decreasing public crime. Anyone can be claimed for service and people can be sent there to disappear. Anyone can use them on a sliding-scale fee. Anything can be done other than murder. It's not a nice way to live. But it's a business. And a place to hold secrets.

**Warning: Very terrible treatment of children. Triggering. Derogatory terms and abuse.**

* * *

**Chapter 3: **Entrance

* * *

**Requisition Class A-14**: Worker application. Qualified. Accepted to position. Specialty.

* * *

1.

Sasuke was worried when Naruto hadn't returned after supper. Appointments simply didn't go until the end of the day. The fact that he wasn't back for supper was unusual, but the fact that afterwords he still hadn't returned was a bad sign.

He managed to get past his contempt of others enough to ask an attendant where Naruto was. The attendant said that they weren't sure and then immediately offered to give him a mild sedative.

Sasuke had panicked before. It was back when he was still fairly new and still unused to the schedule. All he knew was that he usually saw Naruto at least once throughout the day. But on that particular day their schedules never synced up. And he was with his final client who was being particularly vicious with him and bad feelings were continuing to resurface until he was crying almost hysterically.

Even when the client was finished and left, Sasuke still wasn't able to stop crying. The attendant had had to carry him back to the Block where Sasuke wasn't even able to make it back to his room. Instead, to his great shame, he just huddled in the common area and cried endlessly. One of the girls in the common area, one who knew Naruto really well, had walked over and asked him what was wrong.

He'd said something about Naruto and death.

She had gone and rang for an attendant and then thoroughly confused the attendant by asking if Naruto had been killed. The girl was upset as well, and in the end, both she and Sasuke had to be given something to calm them down. Naruto had been especially nice when he returned and he apologized for his schedule and for making Sasuke worry.

Since that time, the attendants would always watch Sasuke for any more hints of it. And he'd get nervous about Naruto from time to time.

Sasuke scowled at the attendant. "I don't want any sedatives, I want to know where Naruto is."

"I'm sorry, kiddo, but I don't know where Naruto is. I'll get you some tea, though."

Sasuke immediately refused it. They'd add some sort of med to the tea. They'd done it before when he had refused some meds.

The attendant frowned, but then smiled slightly. "Should we go check with the receptionist? We can find out where Naruto was."

Sasuke hesitantly agreed and he took hold of the attendant's hand. The receptionist was busy with a client, a tall and thin man. Sasuke could feel the man suddenly look at him and he ducked his head down. He didn't want anyone to see him anymore, he didn't want to meet any new people, and he didn't want any new clients. The receptionist looked at the attendant strangely at the mention of Naruto's name.

"Naruto finished for the day. He's in the infirmary."

The attendant turned to Sasuke. "See, he's just getting a bit of extra care before he comes back."

"Naruto," the man said, "Blondie?"

The receptionist nodded, "Yes. You have another appointment with him coming up in a about a week. Did you want to make another?"

The man looked at the receptionist for a moment before bending down to look Sasuke in the eyes. Sasuke was startled for a moment and cringed back. He didn't want to meet anyone new. No more.

"This one doesn't like clients, huh? Does he attack?"

"Not anymore," the receptionist said, "Though with the proper manipulation, you could get certainly get a rise if you wanted to."

The man nodded his head and then spoke to Sasuke. "You like your little friend Naruto?"

Sasuke didn't answer. His expression made clear his revulsion.

"You like to protect him, don't you?"

Sasuke still didn't answer. The man turned back to the receptionist, "He looks familiar."

"Yeah, I've heard that a lot," the receptionist said off-handedly, "Would you like an appointment with him?"

"I want to add him to my appointment with Naruto," the man said, "And upgrade it."

"Weapons?"

"Sharp and shiny ones," the man said with an amused smile. "Both at the same time."

"Okay," the receptionist said, "That is going to change the price-"

"How much from my account…"

The attendant was taking Sasuke back to the commons. And speaking. "So see, Naruto is fine. He just had to make a visit to the infirmary and he'll be back later."

Sasuke wasn't able to sleep. Even after lights-out, he just lay in the bed that he and Naruto shared, waiting for Naruto to return.

It seemed like hours before an attendant quietly walked into the room, holding a completely limp Naruto. Sasuke sat up immediately. "Is he dead?"

"Shhh," the attendant said soothingly as she made her way to the bed. "He had a bad scare earlier and now he needs some rest."

Sasuke watched anxiously as she placed Naruto gently onto the mattress. "Shizune gave him some medicine, so he'll be asleep for the rest of the night."

She adjusted Naruto so that his head was perfectly on the pillow and then pulled the blanket up. "Now Sasuke, keep an eye on him. If he makes any noise, or looks like he's in pain, or wakes up, then press the call button immediately. Okay?"

Sasuke nodded mutely. The attendant took a long look at Naruto. "Okay then, goodnight boys."

Sasuke watched her leave and then he got to his knees over Naruto and pressed his ear to Naruto's chest. It was a relief to hear his heart beating, though he noticed how much slower it was than his own frightened heart.

"What happened?" he whispered.

There was no response. Naruto was truly unconscious and deeply asleep. Sasuke quickly checked him for injuries. There were lots of signs of cuts on his arms and near his collarbones. But they'd already been treated by Shizune, so they were very faint.

It was confusing and Sasuke was too tired to put anything together. He wrapped his skinny arms around Naruto's skinny body and went to sleep.

It still wasn't time for lights-on when Naruto woke up.

Sasuke was startled to hear the scream and when he finally opened his eyes it was to find Naruto crying hysterically into their bed. "Naruto, what's wrong?" Sasuke asked. He took hold of Naruto's arm and felt something wet. It was blood. Naruto was scratching his arms.

"What are you doing?" Sasuke asked, appalled.

"He killed… dead dead dead," Naruto managed between hysterical sobs.

He gripped his short, sharp nails into his arm and tore. "Stop it!" Sasuke said and fought to hold Naruto's arms down.

He didn't even really hear Naruto's loud screams. "Stop hurting yourself!"

"Kille-" Naruto broke into heavy sobs, unable to form words anymore.

The overhead light was extremely bright. Mona stood at the door and blinked once before striding in and grabbing Naruto's arms and holding them firmly in place. "Sasuke, hit the call button," she said as Naruto fought her.

"What's wrong with him?" Sasuke demanded, frightened.

"Hit the call button!" Mona repeated, trying to stop Naruto's struggling.

"I've got it," a voice said.

It was one of the girls from the neighboring room. "Good girl, Abby," Mona said as the girl ran to the wall and pressed the button.

Mona gasped as Naruto managed to bite her. Abby ran over, her bare feet light against the cold floor. "Naruto!" she said, "Quit fighting!"

Abby reached out to touch his shoulder, but Sasuke slapped her hand away. "Don't touch him!" Sasuke snarled at her.

There was another voice at the door, another of the girls. "What's going on? Mona? Is Naruto alright?"

"Lindsay, go back to bed," Mona said, her voice unusually tense.

Lindsay opened her mouth, but Therese stood behind her, and pulled her out of the way. "Mona?"

"He woke up," Mona said.

"Oh!" Therese said and hurried to Mona's side. "Where's the blood from?" she asked.

"My hand and his arms," Mona said. "Give him a tranquilizer, we need to get him back to the infirmary."

"This is what we _didn't_ want," Therese said as she left the room, intent on getting the tranquilizer.

"Don't give him anything, leave him alone!" Sasuke cried and he hit her in the side.

Mona flinched, but skinny six-year-olds didn't hit very hard. "Sasuke, you are not helping the situation," she said.

Therese returned and looked at Sasuke's panic-stricken expression. She ignored him and went to Naruto's side, holding his shoulder down as she quickly found his vein and injected the syringe. Naruto's scream turned hoarse in its sharpness, and the boy simply never cried at injections.

"Shit, this is worse than before," Mona said, willing Naruto to stop fighting.

"Quit hurting him!" Sasuke cried again and he tried to shove Therese away.

Therese caught Sasuke. Abby watched from nearby, her big eyes wide and uncertain as Naruto's screams faded away and he lay limp. "Sasuke!" Mona said sharply, "Stop that now or else you'll get an injection too!"

Sasuke was horrified to realize that he was crying. "What are you doing to him?"

"We're just making sure that he doesn't hurt himself anymore, honey," Therese said as she kept her arms locked around him and rubbed his arm.

"Why is he doing that?" Abby asked.

"Abby, baby, I need you to go back to bed," Therese said.

"Is he going to be okay?" she asked worriedly.

"Yes. We just need to take him back to the infirmary."

Mona finally released her grip on Naruto's arms and she examined the bite on the outer edge of her hand. It was deep and bleeding heavily. "Lindsay stop crying!" she said, and the girl at the door uselessly pressed her fist to her mouth, "Both you and Abby go back to your bed now!"

Abby hesitated, but she was a compliant nine-year-old and soon both she and Lindsay were out of sight. Mona yanked the pillowcase off of the pillow that Sasuke and Naruto shared and she pressed it to the bite. "What are we going to do with him?" she asked, gesturing to where Mona was still holding Sasuke.

"Give him a sedative. We need to get Naruto back to Shizune. And get ahold of the receptionist. He can't take clients like this."

"Yes he can."

"No. They've been aiming him for the more consensual clientele, they won't be able to deal with this."

"He's still been having some of the other business. It's too much for just Sasuke to handle."

"Let's just get him to Shizune first."

"We can't. Shizune left after she finished taking care of him tonight."

"The other one then."

"Sasuke," Therese said, looking down at the boy who was still breathing hard and staring at Naruto. "Sasuke, will you stay still if I let you go?"

Sasuke nodded and Therese slowly let her arms loosen. "Okay, Sasuke," she said, looking him in the eyes, "We are going to take Naruto to the doctor, to make sure that he gets some help. I'm going to call for another attendant to stay with you, but please wait here until then. Okay?"

Sasuke nodded again, but his eyes filled with tears as he watched Therese carry Naruto out of the room as Mona followed. After a few seconds, Abby snuck back into his room. "What happened, Sasuke? Is Naruto okay?"

Sasuke ignored her.

Lindsay was back at the doorway. "Is he gonna be okay?" she asked and her voice was quavery.

Abby glanced at Sasuke and then walked back and gave Lindsay a big hug. "He's not dead. He'll be okay. Go lay down and I'll be back soon."

Lindsay was barely eight years old and so Abby had become her caretaker. It was a very strange relationship. As were all of the relationships in the brothel.

Lindsay nodded trustingly and headed back into their room. Abby walked over to Sasuke and asked in a very soft whisper. "What happened to Naruto? Is he going to be alright?"

There was a silence as Sasuke waited for her to get the hint and leave. She didn't. She stayed right next to him, waiting for an answer. He finally gave a jerky shrug. Abby stared at him for a moment and then gave him a hug, which he didn't respond to at all.

"Abby get back in bed," a stern voice said at the door, startling the girl.

Abby scurried out of the room. There was an attendant at the door. Sasuke didn't know the attendant's name. And he didn't care. All he saw was the little cup of light brown liquid.

The attendant knelt next to him on the bed and grasped the back of his head. "Drink this," the attendant said before tilting the little plastic cup into Sasuke's mouth.

Sasuke drank it. He didn't care. He would have swallowed poison if that's what they had given him. His world had become nothing but an echoing darkness and he had decided that he would rather drown than try to fight.

"Where's Naruto?"

"Therese already told you, he's in the infirmary. Now you need to get to sleep, you have an appointment in less than three hours."

* * *

2.

"Wait, you're saying that because I had already gone home, you sent Naruto to _him_? Did he give him a freaking lobotomy already?"

"Shizune, calm down. We had to-"

"Shut _up_, Sherry! I told you to _call me_ if something happened with the kid. That's my purpose here, remember? I'm supposed to try to fix all of the damage that is constantly being done. And this one is just a _kid_!"

"Shizune, please-"

"I'm reporting this to Iruka Umino. You went against the specific orders of a government worker as to the aftercare of a fulfiller. I _told_ you-"

"Go take care of the boy, Shizune. Our contacts with the government are strong enough to withstand any complaint you file."

"…Be careful of what you are saying, Roberts. I know who's hidden here."

* * *

3.

Naruto wasn't awake and he wasn't asleep. He was heavy in a painful middle place and there might as well have been a stake running through him for all that he could move. There were electric shocks so intense that he imagined he could see their white flare beneath his eyelids.

"Feeling better?"

Naruto took a slow, deep breath- his chest felt so _heavy_- and opened his eyes. He was in the shiny place again. The place that gave him shivers.

"A series of shock treatments can help the behavior of anyone behaving poorly. I'll have to implant a couple of your teeth back in. You broke them from biting down too hard. I'd have thought that after all of this time here you'd have learned not to bite."

"It hurts," Naruto barely managed.

All he had to do was tell a worker that he was in pain and they'd give him something to make it better.

"That was the point."

Naruto blinked slowly and looked towards the source of the voice. It was a man that he only vaguely recognized. A familiar glint.

"The metal grafts on the bones at your joints. They always feel worse when you get near the perimeters of the building as the metal reacts with sensors we've placed. Every joint will eventually break. All I have to do for the shock treatments is activate the grafts."

There was an incredible pain. His very bones felt like they were vibrating and splintering into thousands of individual strands that were scraping together like metal on a chalkboard.

The stimulation had already ended but Naruto gagged on the force of his screams. It felt like he was going to vomit but he was too out of breath.

"Are you finished then? With all this drama?"

"Stop!"

Naruto recognized Shizune's voice. Good. Shizune would make it better.

"You want to take over now? That sounds fine, I was getting tired."

There was a quick hiss of anger from Shizune and Naruto could feel the cuffs on his wrists and ankles being quickly undone. There was another sound of anger from Shizune as she saw the bruises where he had struggled.

"Oh please, like you haven't seen him in worse condition."

"You know that you are not to be involved in aftercare!" Shizune said as she carefully gathered Naruto into her arms.

"Did you want me to let him lay on the floor and scream and hurt himself? I did you a favor. You should be thanking me for taking over your job while you were at home asleep."

Shizune cradled Naruto's head to her shoulder. "It's okay, I'm going to take care of you now," she murmured.

"Don't forget his teeth," Kabuto said gesturing to the silver tray and smiling.

* * *

4.

"What happened to him? When did he start reacting like this?"

"It was after his last client, James Sutherland."

"James Sutherland? He's a violent client, he should have been with Sasuke."

"He requested Naruto specifically."

"He must have mentioned something."

"Mr. Sutherland?"

"Yes. He's the one who killed Nalee, after all. Did he have weapons with him?"

"Yes. He brought in a scalpel and a razor."

"What was Naruto's condition when the appointment ended?"

"He had lost a great deal of blood and without the immediate intervention of Shizune, it is possible that he may have died."

"Shit, that's vicious."

"The behavior is completely within the limits of allowed conduct. Naruto made it out of the room alive. Mr. Sutherland has done it before. He's only had the one offense."

"…"

"The only unusual thing was his request for Naruto. Mr. Sutherland is much more of a fan of girls than boys. He's never requested a boy before, actually."

"Maybe that's what did it."

"Maybe."

* * *

0.

"_Fucking faggot little boy. Sucking men off for a living. If only your daddy could see you now."_

"_Y-you know my daddy?"_

"_Stupid little brat. Your daddy gave you up and sold you. Weren't you on the streets before this? And now…"_

"_You knew my daddy before he died?"_

"_Ha! Oh fucking hell, what a stupid piece of shit you are. Just like your stupid fucking piece of shit father and your whore of a mother."

* * *

_

5.

Naruto couldn't stop whimpering. Shizune had furthered her healing of him and there was no longer any trace of cuts on his skin. She had carefully realigned his teeth and inserted them, using tiny pins within to keep them in place. It didn't need to be permanent. He was due to lose his baby teeth soon.

* * *

0.

"_I've been feeling the urge to kill again. I'd put my knife here and press it in. Just a little bit deeper and you're in hell, suckin' off Satan himself."_

"_Don't kill me. What do you want me to do? I'll do anything for you."_

"_I want you to bleed."_

"_Stop-"_

"_Last one I killed was a little bitch. She knew how to please. God, I hate sluts. That's what you all are. So I cut her over and over and over again. See, just like this. And with this very same knife."_

"_Killed? You-"_

"_I killed a worthless little slut. She'd only grow up to be a whore, I was doing her a favor."_

"_N…Nalee?"_

"_Why the fuck would I remember her name?"

* * *

_6.

Sherry had come through the door earlier. She had a copy of the day's schedule and she looked worriedly from Naruto back to the calendar. She didn't want to be the one to push this, she wanted to give him more time to heal.

The receptionist and Roberts had both angrily demanded that she sort everything out. It was her job, after all.

"When is he going to be able to take clients again?"

Shizune's eyes flashed dangerously, but she reigned in her anger and turned away to pointlessly recheck Naruto's vitals. "He hasn't even woken up yet."

"Yes, but… Even unconscious there are still things that he could…"

"You're all sick. You're sick, disgusting people."

Sherry was tired of hearing it. "As much as everyone hates me, there is a _reality_ to deal with here. And the _reality_ is that as long as Naruto is out of commission, Sasuke has to take all of his clients. And as close to him as you are, I'm sure you don't want to see him even more often."

Shizune stopped. Sasuke always came to infirmary with some of the most grotesque injuries. In the past he'd spent days, completely doped out from the constant anesthesia she used to help healing. It was heartbreaking to see the kid wander aimlessly along, his wide eyes glazed over.

She suddenly realized the time. "Where is he? And everyone else? I should have seen people by now."

"Dr. Lawrence is doing what she can."

Shizune's eyes widened. "She doesn't have my skill. What she does will scar them."

Sherry nodded.

There was a moment of silence before Shizune cursed violently. "I hate all of you. Find someone to stay with him. _Not_ Kabuto. When he wakes up, let me know."

* * *

0.

"_I'm going to kill you too."_

"_Why?"_

"_Because I want to. And then I'm going to kill that faggot friend of yours."_

"_W-what?"_

"_The other one. They'll find more little boys to replace you."_

"_Don't hurt Sasuke!"_

"_Is that his name?"_

"_Don't-"_

"_It's time for you to shut the fuck up."

* * *

_

7.

Sasuke felt so close to unconsciousness that he could barely feel what was being done to him. Even the feeling of blood was nothing more than a light sensation spreading across his skin. He just wanted to sleep, but he couldn't.

Why couldn't everyone and everything leave him alone? He just wanted to be with Naruto. He'd even stopped wishing for his parents or his grandparents or any of them. He'd get Naruto and they'd leave this place and they'd go to _their _home and be happy. Maybe they could go to school, to that school that his mother had found. It was a bit frightening now, the idea of it, with so many people, but he'd have Naruto there too.

And he'd show Naruto a garden. Naruto had whispered to him in the dark once, asking if Sasuke had ever seen a garden. There'd been such a longing in his voice that Sasuke tried his best to explain it even though he was clumsy with words. It had ended up making Naruto cry quietly into his shoulder.

Naruto woke up shortly before the evening meal. He was subdued, but responsive. He shrugged when asked what happened and after Shizune gave him a thorough examination and packed him with enough pain pills to make sure that he wouldn't feel anything for awhile, she sent him back.

Sherry waylaid him and took him to eat his meal alone. He picked at it which Sherry decided to ignore just this once, but she recorded it as something to watch for later. It was vital that all fulfillers eat. She didn't take him back to the Block until it was time for lights-out; there had been far too much commotion in the past two days.

She led him to his bed and waited while he climbed carefully onto it. "Naruto," she whispered, "If you need anything at all, even if you're just scared, you press the call button and I'll come take care of it."

Naruto stared at her dully for a moment and nodded slightly. He shrugged off her attempt to help pull up the blanket and lay limply until she walked away.

Sasuke sat up and stared down at Naruto. "You're alive."

"So are you," Naruto managed.

And then they both started crying.

* * *

8.

Two days later, nine-year-old Abby was killed by her client. Her death made James Sutherland's murder count move up to two and he was taken away for treatment.

At the end of the week, a new girl arrived. She was a blonde-haired seven-year-old named Ino Yamanaka.

* * *

**Just a guess...Bet you didn't see that one coming.**

**This chapter was particularly terrible (in content anyway), but please stick with me, the next couple are _not_ going to be this bad. And I want to make a note now that the derogatory terms that James Sutherland used are horrible and unacceptable in the context of day-to-day life. I don't condone it.  
**

**Thank you all _so_ much for the reviews. The quality of the reviews was mind-blowing to me, and endlessly interesting. This fic seems to have struck a deep chord and I am absolutely fascinated by everyone's views and opinions of who is at fault and what this is doing to the boys. Please continue to review, I love hearing from you all.**

**Everyone guessed correctly about Tsunade, but there was a pretty even division of opinion about who Naruto reminded her of, namely Minato or her brother. And as for character requests...we all kind of like the same people ;) .**

**I'm sorry for the unpleasantness of this chapter, but once again, please stick with me. It's not going to be this bad for awhile.**

**Thanks to my beta, the wonderful: Laughing Fool  
**

**Review please! And thank you!**

**-CR  
**


	5. Permanence

Warning: Violence, brain-washing, implied sexual situations involving minors. Disclaimer: I don't own any source material.

Summary: AU. Brothels are businesses that are privately-owned, but government-mandated in the hopes of decreasing public crime. Anyone can be claimed for service and people can be sent there to disappear. Anyone can use them on a sliding-scale fee. Anything can be done other than murder. It's not a nice way to live. But it's a business. And a place to hold secrets.

**

* * *

Chapter 5:** Permanence

**

* * *

Requisition Class A**: Forcible compliance contract. Punishment. Brought back for entrance.

* * *

1.

Ino was terrified. New recruits, among the children at least, were always terrified. And Ino hadn't been homeless like Naruto had been. She'd been living with her father. Until he'd gotten some sort of dirt on the government rule in her much smaller city and had tried to blackmail the leaders. It was a stupid move that resulted in him being thrown in prison and his daughter taken away as punishment.

Her father was sure to be killed in prison.

Ino didn't know what her father had found out and, quite frankly, she didn't care. All she wanted was to go home.

She had lived in one of the other regions before this, one that was near an ocean. Naruto had never heard of an ocean before and even after Sasuke tried to explain it he was still confused by the very idea.

Ino was moved into the room next door with Lindsay, but the girls didn't get along. Lindsay missed Abby too much and Ino couldn't deal with her new life. She'd often leave her room during the night to sit against the wall that led out of the Block. The attendants would move her back when they encountered her during the night, but it wasn't unusual to find her passed out by the door in the mornings.

Naruto tried to make friends with her. He was quickly becoming the unofficial support with the children's section. He was first and foremost Sasuke's caretaker as was Sasuke to him. There was never any change or doubt in that. Naruto was the emotional support and Sasuke was the physical support.

But Naruto was quickly changing.

Two times a week he'd be taken out of the Block to go 'talk' with some adults. He described it to Sasuke one time. It was just hanging out with a couple of men, an older one and a younger one. The younger one was apparently from one of the older categories of workers. The older one said that he was a contractor who lived in the city.

At first it had just been them speaking to Naruto. He'd watch the older man, named Edgar, speaking easily to the younger one, Ian. The two slowly acted closer and after noticing how confused Naruto appeared, Ian laughed.

"I really like Edgar," he explained, "he's my boyfriend."

"He's your friend?" Naruto asked.

"Well yeah, he's my friend," Ian said, "but he's also my boyfriend."

"What's that?" Naruto asked, his forehead wrinkled in confusion.

Edgar smiled, "I love Ian," he said, "I visit him all the time and when he's finished with his work here he's going to move in with me so I can take care of him."

Naruto had heard of love before. Tom had mentioned it, as well as a few other customers. He had a vague idea of what it meant. "When do you finish with work?" he asked. He'd never even thought about work being finished. Being given permission to leave.

"We get to leave when we're twenty-eight," Ian said, "I've got thirteen more years to go."

"I've been here for a year and a half," Naruto told him, "How much longer until I can leave?"

"How old are you?" Edgar asked, "About six or seven?"

"I'm six."

"That's…about twenty-two more years," Ian said a bit hesitantly.

"How much is that?" Naruto asked. He knew nothing about numbers.

Edgar waved his hand, "It'll go by just like that," he said, snapping his fingers. "Don't you worry about it."

Naruto nodded again. Edgar patted his lap, "Come here and sit with me," he said.

Naruto obediently moved to his lap. It felt strange when Edgar attempted to do nothing more.

"Do you like working here?" Ian asked.

"No," Naruto answered immediately.

"Why not?"

"It hurts. And I want to see a garden. And I don't want Sasuke to be here. He hates it here."

"You just haven't given it a chance," Ian said.

Naruto looked at him, "Do you like it?"

Ian smiled and nodded, "I think it feels really good. And it's nice to be loved by so many people."

"I don't like it," Naruto said.

Edgar shook his head, "You really do need to give it a chance," he said, "So many people love you and want to be with you and you get to make so many people so happy."

Naruto nodded, still completely unconvinced. But it was easier to agree with people. And it made them happier with you.

Sasuke got angry when he heard about it. "They're liars," he said viciously, "They're liars. No one here cares about us. And how can it feel good? How could it _ever_ feel good?"

Naruto agreed.

But he still had to keep meeting with them.

* * *

2.

Sasuke had a new injury. He stayed in the infirmary much longer than usual and Sherry was very upset about it. It made Naruto nervous and anxious and when they finally brought Sasuke back Naruto pounced on him immediately.

"Let me see it," he demanded, climbing above Sasuke and straddling him.

Sasuke glared at him and didn't move.

"Let me see it," Naruto insisted, "What's wrong with it? Why'd you have to stay in the infirmary?"

Sasuke finally jerked his head slightly to the side and Naruto's attention was drawn to his neck. It was dark throughout the room, the only light came from the low night-lighting in the common area and Naruto bent closer in order to see it.

It was oddly shaped, clearly made with some sort of knife and it was low on his neck, almost at the collarbone. It didn't look that serious and aside from the unusual design there was only one thing that made it worrisome. "Why's it so dark still?" Naruto asked.

"Shizune couldn't heal it," Sasuke muttered.

"What?"

Sasuke was silent for moment, clearly furious, "She couldn't heal it. They sewed it up instead. So it's permanent."

Permanent was a scary word. It meant forever and it was something terrible to happen to a fulfiller. If you got enough permanent wounds you were transferred to a different ward. None of the kids really knew about it, but they were all frightened of it.

Naruto immediately reached out to touch it, but Sasuke hit his hand away and covered it with his own hand. They were both silent for a moment; Sasuke was clearly furious and Naruto was clearly shocked.

"I've got scars too," he whispered after a moment. "On my face. No one cares though."

"Shut up," Sasuke snapped, "Why would I care about your face?"

"I don't care about your neck," Naruto said, "Or what scars you have."

"I don't care what you think!" Sasuke said and he shoved Naruto off of him. "I want to get out of this place!"

Naruto got on his knees, "We will! Ian said that it's only…22 years and we'll get to leave!"

There was a sudden terrible silence. Sasuke sat up and stared at him with wide eyes. "Twenty-two years?" he finally repeated in a whisper.

"Yeah," Naruto said hesitantly, uneasily. "Edgar said that it was…okay…"

Sasuke took in a sudden broken breath and pressed his face against his knees, his entire body trembling. He starting mumbling something in a clearly torn voice that Naruto couldn't hear.

"Sasuke? What's wrong?" Naruto asked frantically, "What's wrong, what happened?"

Sasuke raised his head and looked at Naruto, his eyes violently red and painful. Then he reached up quickly and ripped the stitches on his neck. It made him wince and cry out, but he kept going.

"Sasuke!" Naruto shouted, "Stop!"

"_Shut up!_" Sasuke shouted in return, "_Shut up!_ I won't do this! I'm not going to do it anymore! I want out! Now!"

Naruto reached for him, but Sasuke moved away quickly, digging his nails deeper into the profusely bleeding wound. Naruto ran to the wall and pressed the button for an attendant repeatedly.

It was a male attendant that Naruto didn't know. The room was suddenly and lividly bright and the attendant cursed as he grabbed Sasuke and forced his arms back into a safe position. He held him in place as he one-handedly prepared a syringe and then injected it, using the open wound on the boy's neck.

"Take me with!" Naruto demanded, "I need to go with him!"

The man ignored him, using both arms to hold Sasuke in place again.

"Take me to the infirmary!" Naruto shouted.

Sasuke was slowly losing his angry thrashing. Naruto stared at the attendant and then reached out, grabbed the syringe and jammed it into his own neck, tearing it through his skin until the needle broke off in his skin. He choked as his gag reflex activated and he threw up.

The attendant carried the mostly limp Sasuke with him to the wall as he called for another attendant. Naruto put his fingers in his mouth and bit until there was blood. "Take me with him!" he shouted again, blood dripping out of his mouth and down his chin.

"Fine!" the attendant yelled in his face, "Quit it!"

* * *

3.

Sasuke spent the next two days in the infirmary, all appointments canceled. Naruto was drugged out of his mind and delivered to all of his own appointments and was also taken to whichever of Sasuke's appointments that he was able to cover. That night he was taken by an attendant to Kabuto's workroom and he spent the night on a stretcher with wrists and ankles restrained.

Cuts that he'd gotten throughout the day were healed, but none of the bruises and none of the bones that were injured were healed. The medication wasn't renewed and Kabuto gave him something that kept him awake.

The next day was an exact repeat.

Self-injury was absolutely forbidden in their establishment. He was being punished.

Naruto didn't know what happened to Sasuke while he was in the infirmary, but when he returned there was no sign of anger. He was quiet and subdued and he slept as close to Naruto as he could possibly get, his skinny arms wrapped so tightly that at times it restricted Naruto's breathing. Not that Naruto minded. He wanted nothing more than to be close in return.

Those two days broke both of the boys more than anything that had happened in the past year.

* * *

4.

Kakuzu was a nasty monster of a man.

His appearance did nothing to detract from that fact. At some point in the past he'd been heavily injured by some sort of blade and the parts of his body that were visible were all terribly scarred.

He lived in one of the bad areas of the city and it had been rumored that he was worth a lot of money. One of the neighborhood 'patrols' met up with him in the night, threw him against a wall, and demanded that he give them all of his money or else they were going to cut his neck from ear to ear.

He shot three of them in the face, before the fourth regained enough of her wits to turn and run. He shot her with a cold precision. The bullet passed into her back and then severed her spinal cord, just below the line of her shoulders.

When he was questioned by the police, he described, in adequate detail, exactly what he had done. There was absolutely no sign of remorse or any hesitation. It was obvious that he believed that he had behaved correctly and it was the way that he would handle similar situations in the future.

The coldness of his personality was what attracted the attention of the authorities. And after that he worked as a scouter. If the authorities needed someone, he would find them.

It became especially profitable when his skills were needed in the brothel businesses. They would tell him what they were looking for and he delivered. And then he was paid handsomely after delivering his product.

* * *

5.

Iruka Umino hated making visits. He hated it more than anything and he always dreaded going. But the idea that Iruka would avoid work was laughable. That man was incredible at his job and he would go to the establishment when required to check in at the slightest hint of troubling information.

Brothels made him sick.

He hated the very idea of it. Specifically, of people being forced into it and being kept away for so long. He wished that he had nothing to do with the business.

But he had applied for a government position four years ago. The government paid well and he needed money. He was hoping for some low-level position and had requested, his ultimate goal, to be given an assignment as an educator. But after signing a contract the government was free to assign workers wherever they wanted. He unwittingly had signed away ten years of his life to the work of processing people in the slavery of the deviant-control sector.

A government doctor by the name of Tsunade had apparently visited the establishment awhile back and afterwards had lodged a very vicious complaint. He'd heard of Tsunade before. She was a woman of incredible healing abilities and a degenerate gambler and drinker.

The previous night he'd gotten a call from the woman herself.

She was drunk, rambling and slurring. It was only because of his initial shock and his overarching respect for her that he didn't hang up immediately.

_"-blond boy. Uzumaki? Fucking liars-"_

Iruka had pulled up his records and found one for a boy named Uzumaki. But there was nothing out of place. It made him wince, of course, to see the age of the kid, but beyond that there wasn't anything of notice.

He'd make sure to see the boy, in person, however.

* * *

6.

"I brought you some candy, Naruto. Come here and sit with me again."

Naruto nodded and walked over to Edgar. He was still subdued from the week before, from the punishment he'd endured, and from Sasuke's freakout. He was careful when he walked, whenever he moved. The very idea of being injured was terrifying. The last time that he'd seen his own blood he'd stopped breathing for a moment.

It was a looming equation in his mind. Being injured meant being punished.

It didn't matter how many reassurances others gave him. Naruto knew that if he was injured, he was bound to get punished.

Edgar had chocolates. He unwrapped them one at a time and would feed them to Naruto and his fingers would always brush against his lips and sometimes caress for a moment or two. He rubbed Naruto's back with his other hand.

"Do you like chocolates?" Edgar asked.

Naruto nodded.

"They don't give you many here, do they?" he asked.

"On birthdays and things," Naruto began and then stopped as Edgar raised another chocolate to his mouth.

"See, I like Edgar, because he brings me chocolate whenever we meet," Ian said with a smile, "Or anything else I want. Have you ever gotten anything from a client?"

"I got a bear," Naruto said through a mouthful of chocolate, "and some candy one time."

Edgar patted Naruto on the back and said, "I've got to leave early tonight, but I'll see you next time."

There was a silence in the room after Edgar left and then Ian moved from his place on the chair to kneel on the floor in front of Naruto.

"Do you like to play games?"

Naruto slowly nodded, but there was an air in the room that was making him feel at odds. Ian took one of the remaining chocolates, unwrapped it, and held it up. "How about we split this one?" he said.

"You can have it. It's okay," Naruto said.

Ian shook his head, "No, we're playing a game. Let's see who can get the most."

Ian put the chocolate in his mouth, took hold of Naruto's face, and pressed their lips together.

* * *

7.

"Ino, come and draw with me," Naruto said.

Ino raised her face from her knees, where she was huddled against the wall and she looked at him miserably. He was kneeling down in front of her and smiling slightly. "Come on. You can draw with Sasuke and me. You don't have any clients now, right?"

Ino hesitantly shook her head and allowed Naruto to slowly take hold of her hand and lead her over to where he had crayons and paper set out on the flat table in the room he shared with Sasuke. Sasuke glared at Ino and she flinched slightly, but Naruto seemed completely oblivious and it made it a bit easier.

"Draw a picture of the ocean," Naruto said excitedly. "I wanna see what it looks like."

It was the first real look that Ino had gotten of their room. Granted, there were no doors on anyone's room, but no one went in without permission. Their room was as bare as her own, but there were signs of how long they had been there.

At some point Naruto had dragged in the table. There was a bear in the corner, though it looked dusty, brown fur turned gray. There was a neat stack of playing cards, though they were looking pretty worn.

"Come sit down," Naruto said again, patting the ground.

Ino did. There was a stack of coloring books, and a mound of purely blank paper. She could see another pile of drawings.

There were hundreds of them. There were mountains' worth, their edges creating a brokenly colorful tableau. She glanced at them. The top one was a gray color, scribbled all over. There was nothing else besides gray, nothing more to the picture.

"What is that?" she asked, pointing.

Naruto went over to the pictures. "This is the ocean. But I don't know how to draw it because water is clear. Sasuke said that isn't right."

Ino lifted the picture up and noticed a similar one beneath it. She sat down and started looking at all of the pictures and found that the last several dozen were all attempts at drawing the ocean.

"Here are the gardens," Naruto said, shoving another stack at her.

Hundreds of pictures gardens, uneven green lines with spastic blasts of color. Naruto went through the stack and showed her a picture of an orderly green garden with peaceful looking flowers and trees. "See, Sasuke did this one. I was making them wrong. Do you know gardens?"

Ino shrugged. "We just have fields outside of the city," her breath caught suddenly. Just the barest mention of home was horrific, it was so terribly far away, unattainable.

"When I leave I'm going to have a huge garden," Naruto said, "with all of the different trees and flowers and squirrels and a hundred birds."

"One hundred?" Ino repeated.

"He can't count," Sasuke said flatly. "He just repeats what he hears."

"Hey!" Naruto returned, "You've been teaching me. I _am_ learning."

An attendant entered the doorway, "Naruto, you have an appointment."

"With who?" Naruto asked, getting to his feet.

"Terry Rockwell."

Naruto took hold of her hand and they walked out of the room. Sasuke watched them leave and then he turned with a glare towards Ino. "Get out."

* * *

8.

"Sherry, are my appointments with Edgar and Ian- are they clients?" Naruto asked.

It was the evening and Sherry intercepted Naruto to take him to meet Ian and Edgar. She looked down at him, "No, they're visitors. And these aren't appointments, they're just nice visits."

"I don't want to go to them anymore."

"What?" Sherry asked startled.

Naruto was looking straight up at her. "I don't want to meet them anymore. I wanna stay in the Block."

"Why don't you want to meet with Ian and Edgar? Aren't they nice to you?"

"They're nice."

"Well, then wouldn't it be rude to tell them that you don't want to visit anymore? Especially after they've been so nice to you?"

"They can have a good time without me. They like being together."

"…Well I guess you can have a break for awhile," she said slowly. "But they're your friends and you shouldn't ignore them forever."

* * *

9.

"Who did that to your neck?" Naruto asked, reaching across their bed to gently touch the area around the scarred mark.

"A client."

"One that you see a lot?"

"I hate talking about clients."

"Is it one that hurts you?"

"I hate him."

"He's one you see a lot?"

"We need to sleep. You have an appointment really early tomorrow."

"… Hey Sasuke?"

"What?"

"I'll love you. You can be my boyfriend."

* * *

10.

Iruka felt sick as he saw the little blonde girl being led towards the corridor of doorways. Her hair had been tied into pigtails with lilac ribbons and her eyes were slightly glazed. He knew that customers could request details and he knew that ribbons weren't part of the standard dress.

He _hated_ this place.

The receptionist frowned while smiling politely and nodded him towards the staircase. Iruka could hear the customer speaking at the desk in a quiet voice.

"-I just wanna watch. I don't wanna touch, I'm not a pervert, y'know? I just wanna watch."

"What is it you would like to watch? There are different clients with voyeuristic tendencies."

"I, uh, I wanna watch two girls going at it. Not any clients. Two, uh, y'know… two young girls. Maybe with a boy or something."

"Of course-"

Iruka was a professional, but he covered his ears. It was either that or beat the monster to within an inch of his life. Or to death. It might be better for the workers in the long-run.

There _were_ workers who had joined voluntarily. Some of the older workers that had wanted to get away from their current lives and there was a salary for voluntary workers delivered at the end of their contract. Why was it he had had to hear a request for the children?

Sherry wasn't at her desk. He hadn't really expected her to be, she was a remarkably efficient woman and he had made no appointment. Iruka was allowed to secure heavy fines if he discovered anything out of order and it was his hope to catch one of the establishments at some point.

When Sherry finally did show up she looked flustered and annoyed. "Iruka, a pleasure as always. What have we done to hear about your contempt in person?"

"I need to see Naruto Uzumaki," he said.

"Naruto is with a client and it's for a long appointment. You should really _call us_ before coming on over."

"I have good reasons for not calling, you know that."

"What do you need with him anyway?" Sherry asked, yanking open a filing drawer and rifling through it quickly. "Naruto has always received top-notch care and his files are perfectly in order."

She pulled out an immaculate folder and laid it open on her pristine desk. "Here are the records from his last physical as well as all the subsequent trips to the infirmary. Mild problems at most."

Iruka glanced at the folder. He had an exact duplicate of that folder in his computer records at his office. "There have been some questions about the child's identity. He was a street urchin beforehand, but if there is a way to trace his origin we are supposed to do it. You know the protocol."

Sherry paled though she turned back to the filing drawer before Iruka could see it. "I haven't heard anything about that. What information have you heard? You could have simply emailed this to me."

"You said he'd be finished in awhile? I'll wait. This will give me an opportunity to inspect the rest of the establishment. And are you still employing that butcher Kabuto?"

"Kabuto is member of our staff," Sherry said evenly, "he works night-shifts only."

Sherry's cell-phone started ringing and she breathed a silent sigh of relief as she pulled it out. "Hello?"

Iruka looked up when he heard her gasp. "They made a move against them? The two children?"

There was a silence. "Oh my god, they're coming here. Do you realize what this going to do for us? I-"

She was cut off by more speaking. Finally she nodded. "I'll get the forms right away. Bring them up as soon as they get here. They'll surely be clean enough."

Sherry closed her phone and immediately pulled open a drawer, pulling out blank forms. "You'll have to excuse me Iruka. We're getting new entrants and they'll need my attention."

Iruka's head was starting to hurt. "High profile cases? Who?"

Sherry didn't even bother looking at him. "The two Hyuuga children. Go ahead with your inspection, I'll be right here if you need me."

* * *

11.

They were ransom children. The Hyuugas were far too powerful for the government to make a move against like they had done to the Uchihas, so the government hadn't bothered to make any secret of it. The heir to the main house and the prodigy of the lower house were both requisitioned.

There was a group of officials at each of the requisitionings though they occurred simultaneously. The government had no qualms about playing dirty and they took the two children from the prestigious school that they attended, walking in during class-time. One official presented the startled instructor with the letter of requisition while another walked down the aisle of children's seats and forcibly lifted the pale little girl into his arms. The boy was led out of his classroom by the wrist. Neither of the children had any clue as to what was happening though the girl started crying after only a few minutes.

Their parents were informed through emails.

There was a threat screamed into actual silence.

_Stop what you're doing if you want your children back in one piece._

* * *

12.

Another room had to be opened in order to take on the two new children.

The girl was frightened and rarely stopped crying. She seemed so much more delicate than any of the other children in the Block which immediately made Naruto worry for her. But it was Ino that took the new girl under her wing.

"It'll be okay. We've still got parents, okay? They'll get us out of here."

Hinata nodded while pressing her face into Ino's small shoulder. "Okay," she whimpered with a muffled voice.

The boy was furious. His anger rivaled Sasuke's own formidable temper. He raged against the workers, the clients, the other children, and Hinata.

"I thought your parents were supposed to be all-powerful! Why haven't they gotten us out of here? Why haven't they done anything? Are they just moving on to the next heir? Worthless, stupid fool!"

Not even Naruto was able to calm his anger and making people feel better was one of his seemingly natural gifts.

But Hinata and Neji both dealt with far worse clients than any of the other children. Their identities weren't secrets, it was well-known where they were at and who they were. As a result there were many customers who came to use them purely as revenge against their well-known family. Their clients would go out of their way to humiliate them, to cause them intense pain. There had been many attempts to disfigure the two and it was only through the sheer persistence of Shizune and her skill that the children were maintained. Their family or any known worker of their family were refused entry to the establishment.

Iruka had been forced to abandon his attempt to visit Naruto that day, instead his focus was immediately turned to the monumental documentation of such a class of requisition. Incredibly high-profile duo cases with immediate legal action to regain custody of children, though it was completely pointless to attempt anything through the courts. The children faced an unnaturally high likelihood of being killed as well.

It was nightmarish.

The brothel was making incredible amounts of money. It was worth putting up with the boy's horrific anger and the overtime necessary to pay Shizune for her extra time. It was even worth the money necessary to hire new infirmary workers to take care of the other fulfillers. Though the new workers weren't as skilled, nor as thorough.

Which is why no one noticed that the scar on Sasuke's neck was changing.

* * *

Hey everyone, it's been awhile hasn't it? I have a bunch of excuses for you, but most of them aren't interesting.

This chapter is unbeta-ed, I had to either get it out now or else I'd never end up doing it. This is a hard story to write, I have to work at it.

This chapter is dedicated to **lil_lo**, your words are appreciated a million times over, thank you so, so much. Anyone who enjoyed this chapter should also thank lil_lo.

I'll get to review replies soon, hopefully. I'm taking far too many summer classes, with far too wide a time-range, and it's kinda destroying my soul.

Reviewers, you have been awesome. Seriously. I love hearing from you and your opinions on everything. One of the greatest things that you can give a writer is encouragement and feedback.

And I'm above the ten-per-chapter mark! My life is complete!

Review please!

-CR


	6. Chocolate

AU. Brothels are businesses that are privately-owned, but government-mandated in the hopes of decreasing public crime. Anyone can be claimed for service and people can be sent there to disappear. Anyone can use them on a sliding-scale fee. Anything can be done other than murder. It's not a nice way to live. But it's a business. And a place to hold secrets.

* * *

**Warning: Pedophilia, violence, language, mentions of rape and severe abuse against children.

* * *

**

**Requisition Class B**: Kid on the street. Discovered sleeping by the owner and brought back for entrance.

* * *

1.

Lauren Harper was the client that always made Naruto sad, even though he didn't completely understand why. She was one of only two females that he ever had to work with, but she was never cruel and she was never interested in him for the same reason that his other clients seemed to be interested in.

She was pretty and young, with auburn hair and big blue eyes and she'd visit him once a week. She'd sit on the bed and held her arms out so he could crawl into her lap and then she'd rock him until he'd fall asleep. Sometimes she'd bring a dog-eared children's book to read to him and they'd occasionally work on their ABC's or numbers.

And then at the end of it all she would just hold onto him and sometimes start crying, her tears dripping onto his bright blond hair. She'd kiss his cheek or forehead, or sometimes both and start crying in earnest as he was escorted out of the room at the end of the session.

She'd tell him that she loved him.

It made his throat ache. And Naruto didn't cry anymore.

* * *

0.

Lauren Harper was 28 years old. And when she was 26, her son Colin had disappeared from their front yard as he'd been playing.

She had walked out of their little house and into the yard to get him for lunch. And he had been gone.

Colin was- had been six.

It had been two years and Colin's body had never been found.

Colin had had blond hair and blue eyes.

* * *

2.

Hinata was trembling as one of the medics sewed the laceration around her brow. Shizune was away so stitches were necessary until her return. Ino sat behind Hinata, holding onto her and soothing her more.

This was how the children learned to cope. It was the easiest to find someone else and help them, comfort them, and in doing so it made them feel as though they were strong and somehow in a bit of control.

"Don't cry, it'll just make it hurt," Ino said.

She was only looking to help for a moment. Hinata would be injured during her next appointment.

Ino actually wished that Naruto was around to help comfort Hinata. Naruto was so good at this kind of thing, he was the only one that could truly make people better or happier. To change a bit. The only other thing that changed them was this place itself. This place could change anyone.

But Naruto wasn't around. He was with Sasuke. And Sasuke was hidden in their room, wrapped up in their blanket, sweating profusely. Naruto kept trying to help him, but it must have not been working because neither of them left the room. And Sasuke had to be carried to his appointments anymore.

It was strange that Naruto was the only one who was trying to help. Not even the attendants were involved. The couple workers who had tried had been coldly rebuffed by Sasuke and they were fine with leaving the boy alone after that.

Except Naruto.

"It'll be okay," Ino repeated to Hinata, "Shizune will be able to fix this."

Neji watched with cold disgust. He hated this. He hated weakness. Therefore he hated his cousin. Completely. As much as he hated everything. But at least he could understand the rest of it. If fate wanted to screw him over, if this was the kind of justice that he was faced with then fuck the rest of them.

It was Hinata who disgusted him, who he could barely stand to look at. She kept staring at the world around her, frightened, needing comfort. Waiting as though someone would right it all for her. But that wasn't the way that fate worked. It wasn't an even-handed thing, fate was weighted only by itself and there was no reason that it would work in her favor. Anyone with the slightest bit of logic could understand that.

What could fix _this_ insult, _this_ humiliation?

Sure. Shizune would heal the slash on Hinata's face. And there'd be another slash by tomorrow evening. Maybe it would take out Hinata's eyes that time. Maybe someone would be so thrilled by the sight of her blood that they'd go ahead and gut her like some stupid, worthless animal. Maybe they'd do it to him. Maybe to that sunny fool Naruto.

Like fate cared about any of them.

* * *

3.

"What hurts?" Naruto whispered to Sasuke.

Sasuke didn't answer, there was nothing he was willing to say.

"Everything?" Naruto asked.

Yes. He wanted to breathe fire, to burn everything to the ground.

"Don't leave me," Sasuke managed finally.

Sasuke knew. Naruto would be the only one to keep him okay. Without Naruto, he would fall out of control and he didn't want it all to end.

Though he did want it all to end. Maybe he could keep Naruto with him.

"I won't. I promise."

He didn't bother responding.

"Let me get an attendant. We're supposed to tell them if we're in pain."

"No."

* * *

4.

Kakuzu was an observant person so it was strange that he didn't notice the man at first. He didn't notice until the other man appeared in front of him and slammed into him hard. Kakuzu was knocked backward and he had to step quickly to keep from tumbling to the ground. Even so, he'd hit his forehead hard against the other man's and he had the suspicion that a nasty bruise was sure to form.

"Jeez, watch it," the man said, his tone almost unconcerned.

Kakuzu's head snapped up, ready to burn holes into this dead man talking. The man was startlingly distinctive in an understated way. It was strange to see silver hair on someone that young, and there was an old scar running vertically through an oddly colored eye, only to disappear below a strip of cloth. What was odder was that he seemed almost normal, as though he fit seamlessly into this environment.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Kakuzu said slowly and quietly.

The man appeared to smile though it was hard to tell when his mouth wasn't visible. "I'm telling you to watch where you're walking," he said in that same easy tone.

"Good god, I'm sick of little bastards. Not that I mind killing you," Kakuzu said, reaching casually for today's weapon of choice, a knife with a five-inch blade.

"A gun would have been a better choice. Bullets are a bit harder for me to dodge," the man told him carelessly, "That knife is going to be no problem."

The man grinned at him.

Actually it seemed silly to call him a man. He was just some teenager, no older than nineteen. Stupid punk.

Kakuzu wasn't one to waste energy or resources when it wasn't necessary and so there was no style to the sharp jab he made with the knife. It only needed to pierce internal organs in order to be fatal. In this part of the city.

There was no way in the hell that the man should have been able to grab his wrist as he moved. He could feel the fingers change immediately to start twisting his hand, moving instantly to break his wrist. Kakuzu threw himself backwards, switching the blade from his right hand to his left. They stood several feet apart and Kakuzu took a better look at this foolish teenager.

The kid stood, his feet connected well to the ground though his stance was light enough to move at that startlingly fast pace. His hands were loose and he made no twitch towards some hidden weapon. The kid was literally just fighting with nothing more than himself.

"You can leave now if you want," the kid offered.

What a stupid little fuck. As though he had any say in what was happening. Kakuzu would make sure that the little shit died, as violently as possible. The only question was whether to report what he did or not.

Kakuzu didn't notice the interest in the punk's eyes as he watched the big, lumbering man make his decision. There was a strong gleam of fluid intelligence that completely disappeared as he shifted his stance, casually rolling a small rock onto the tip of one shoe and balancing it.

Kakuzu weighted the knife in his palm and then flung it with all the accuracy that cold precision could offer and pulled out the gun that he always carried as well. The kid had admitted to having trouble with bullets.

It was clear that the kid had been expecting the knife and, irritatingly enough, the gun as well. He didn't shift away from the knife as much as an untrained person would have, letting it clatter against the wall. Then with a move that was hard to follow he dropped into a crouch, sweeping the knife into his right hand while taking up the rock in his left. Kakuzu had been aiming further to the left, assuming that the boy would jump into the direction of his steady leg, the one not balancing the rock, and in the half-second that it took to readjust to the right the kid sent the knife sailing back at him.

With a grunt and curse Kakuzu stumbled back and to the left, the quick move catching him off-guard. He fired the gun as the knife whizzed by his head with the sharp sound of cutting through air. The kid was _much_ stronger than he appeared if he had the strength to throw that hard. He appeared unconcerned as a bullet grazed right above the juncture of his neck and shoulder which was completely unexpected.

Goddammit all to hell. Kakuzu knew now that he had badly underestimated the kid which was once of the worst disadvantages that a person could give themselves in a battle.

The kid moved towards him blindingly quickly and let the rock fly, aimed at him face and Kakuzu had to take a second to block it with his forearm and the kid was on him, hand on his shoulder for the lightest half-moment, sweeping his leg behind Kakuzu's knees, drawing him forward.

Kakuzu slipped his arm under the boy's outstretched arm, curling it up to his shoulder and locking it while shoving the kid forward, sliding behind him and slamming his elbow in between the kid's shoulders. The kid threw himself forward, something Kakuzu had been expecting this time; he'd simply been buying time. And the kid's movement was the time that he'd needed to swing his arm forward, catching the boy in the side of his head with the butt of his gun.

He staggered but didn't lose his balance, to Kakuzu's annoyance. Kakuzu righted his arm and squeezed the trigger of the gun, the loud shock of the blast startling the world around them once again. The boy simply vanished, reappearing a foot to the left. There was blood running from the side of his head, darkening his hair and dripping off his jaw.

"Bye," he said with a quick grin and half wave, a simple splaying of his fingers. Kakuzu fired directly at him and couldn't even find it in him to be surprised when the kid vanished once again.

He swung around, completely prepared to find the kid with a knife to his head.

He wasn't there.

And after two minutes of thorough and expert sensing and waiting, Kakuzu knew that the kid had actually left.

Fucking hell? What the fuck had that been? What kid had those kind of reactions? That took formal training, not just the experience of living in this shit-heap. And no kid with the money that that required would be here unless he was a druggie or simply a cocky, stupid-as-hell son-of-a-bitch looking to prove something irrelevant.

Kakuzu ignored the throbbing in his forearm. The hit that the kid got with that rock had been just as powerful as the knife-throw. His ulna was cracked at the very least and he'd have to fucking pay someone to fix it for him. And Kakuzu _hated_ having to spend money for anything. His way of life was to hoard.

So, he decided, that kid was dead. He'd find out who the fuck he was and Kakuzu would make sure that the little bastard paid and paid dearly.

* * *

5.

Iruka had been visited by more powerful people in the last month than he had ever even seen throughout his life. He was threatened, offered unimaginable amounts of money, and was finally visited by Hiashi Hyuuga himself.

The man had harsh tight lines desecrating his face and he looked as though he hadn't slept since the children had been taken away.

"What can you do to get them back to me?" Hiashi asked Iruka coldly.

The situation made Iruka sick. "Nothing. I've filed all of the appeals. I've forwarded them, I've done what I can. I do not have that kind of power."

Hiashi didn't seem surprised. "Who can help?"

"Everyone with the power to help has been well-paid for their power," Iruka said helplessly. "Just… just keep protesting with the legal action. You may be able to get them out early."

Hiashi watched him with such a blatantly contemptuous expression that it made Iruka look away. His advice was worthless to the point of being stupid.

"You can visit the… institution," Hiashi said flatly, "Correct?"

Iruka nodded.

"Give them poison."

Iruka glanced back at Hiashi sharply. "What?"

Hiashi's expression was unrepentant. He took his hand out of his pocket and unceremoniously dropped a packet with two small pills onto Iruka's wooden kitchen table. "It's painless. Neji will take it. He'll get Hinata to as well."

"You want me to help two seven-year-olds kill themselves?" Iruka said slowly.

Hiashi's expression returned to that cold contempt. "It's better that they die."

"There's care for them," Iruka said, his tone soft though hardly comforting, "They'll make it until the discharge time."

Hiashi spoke with disgust. "Your paperwork is a cold break from reality, isn't it? Neither I nor any of my workers or family can see them. But there have been letters from those that hate me and my clan. Describing what they've done to those children…" Hiashi's expression broke for the slightest fraction of a second. Not to tears, but to a deeper vein of pain. "It won't stop any time soon."

Despite what Hiashi might imply, Iruka knew the reality of what happened in these places. He had processed too many requests and filed too many complaints. He'd dealt with the paperwork of murdered clients and seen the photos of the mutilated corpses. All the mild-mannered-ness in the world didn't detract from the fact that Iruka lived in reality. More so than Hiashi ever had.

"If you manage to kill those two, they will requisition your other child," Iruka said.

Hiashi didn't react for a moment, then his fist curled tightly. Otherwise his face remained blank. He left without speaking another word or giving any other acknowledgement.

Done.

* * *

6.

Her tolerance was so high anymore that it took true effort to drink into blackouts.

She'd begun all of this when her brother had died. It had been painful to be alone and to have made that investment and placed all of that faith into a child that died and ceased to exist anymore. She'd thought that a goodbye would have made it easier and regretted with her entire being that she had been gone.

The death of her fiancé proved to her that having a goodbye made nothing easier. The fact was that he was dead. He didn't care about her anymore. He didn't breathe, think, or feel anymore. She didn't believe in any of that stupidity about someone watching over her. If either of them existed in any way then they wouldn't have abandoned her completely.

And so that was it. She was finished putting her faith in anyone. She didn't have any faith left to give. There were only debts to be paid.

Not the physical ones, the ones that the government had managed to trap her with. The enormous amount that she owed because of how foolishly careless she'd been.

The simple fact was that there were people that she owed.

The boy at the brothel.

She needed to make certain of who it was. She hoped that she wasn't right, good god, she was sick of always being right, and if it turned out that she was… then she'd fucked up badly.

Again.

The last time that she'd seen that boy (that little screaming infant), there'd been a scar, a deep line carved into his cheek, the blood flowing down in thin, almost watery torrents.

There'd been a knife as well.

Despite the amount of effort, the amount of alcohol, Tsunade managed to drink herself into oblivion.

* * *

7.

"Hey kiddo. It's time for another checkup," Sherry said with a smile to Naruto, running her hand affectionately over his head, smoothing down the always, _always_ wild blond hair.

Naruto stood up from where he'd been playing with blocks and took her hand. "So I'm seven now?" he said as they passed through the doorway.

There was an attendant leading both Neji and Hinata up the stairs to the infirmary. Naruto knew that they sometimes had appointments together and he felt bad for them. He'd had appointments with other fulfillers before and it had been incredibly uncomfortable. After the first one with Ino they'd avoided each other for weeks. And Naruto wasn't sure how Sasuke acted on his own, but he knew that when he was in the room as well Sasuke acted so coldly and defiantly that he'd get terribly injured. Seeing Sasuke bleeding freely from a completely shattered jaw had made him feel sick enough to cry.

People were strange, with all of the things that they wanted. Naruto didn't quite understand it. He didn't want to see anyone hurt. But everyone else seemed to.

"Yes. So how about a cake? A chocolate one this time," Sherry said, slowing down a little to let the Hyuuga children disappear before continuing up the staircase with Naruto.

Chocolate reminded him Ian and Edgar. They never hurt him.

"I don't want chocolate," he said.

Sherry nodded. "White cake it is, then."

The physical examination was fine. Even without the help of the medics, Naruto always seemed to heal better than the other children or workers in general. Sherry was extremely pleased to see that he was retaining that sweetness and obedience. Most of the time the kids would lose it pretty quickly and there were clients who _wanted_ that sweetness.

It was time to restart the sessions with Edgar and Ian, Sherry decided.

"Can you fix my face?" Naruto asked.

Dr. Lawrence looked up startled and Sherry's gaze swung to Naruto. "What's wrong with your face?" Sherry asked gently.

"The scars," he said.

Dr. Lawrence took his chin in hand and soothingly examined the scarred skin. "These are old injuries, kiddo. They're as healed as they can be."

"I don't want to go to the scarred section," Naruto said.

"There's no need to worry about that," Sherry said, "You're not going to go to that section."

"How did I get them?" he asked.

Sherry shifted. Dr. Lawrence smiled lightly. "I don't know for sure. But you didn't have a home before you came here, so you could have gotten them from someone or something there. That's why it's better here. We can take care of you."

* * *

8.

Naruto was startled to see Ian as he exited the infirmary with Sherry. Ian was being half-supported by an attendant as he staggered towards the surgical room. There was blood soaking his shirt so that it clung wetly to his chest as well as blood pouring from his nose to cover his lips. Ian made a gagging sound and dropped forward, opening his mouth so that red-tinged saliva could fall out along with the hard white pieces of his broken teeth. The cloth wrapped around his left hand was beginning to drip because of how drenched it was. His expression was that of sedated agony.

Kabuto was there to greet him though he made no effort to help support him. "How disgusting," he commented lightly.

Sherry made no acknowledgment, but she picked Naruto up then, pressing his head into her shoulder as she headed directly to the stairs again. "Let's get you that cake, birthday-boy."

* * *

**A/N.**

**Hey, I'm actually here. And I give you no option but to forgive me. I spent the last two months taking four classes and one week ago I finally graduated from my University. Then I spent this last week allowing the mush of my brain to regroup into usable matter.**

**Anyway, thank you all so MUCH for the reviews! I absolutely love reading your feedback and I sincerely hope that you continue to share your thoughts.**

**Oh, and one my reviewers asked where I got the inspiration for all of the terrible violence in these, particularly, if I was a child abuser or someone with a prison sentence. Which kinda made my night to read that, not gonna lie.**

**The major influences for the type of violence and the type of institutions are that of the Marc Detroux case in Switzerland, the Rape of Nanking during WWII, and the Bosnian crisis of the early nineties. I've actually enormously softened the incredible violence of the three. And for some of the reactions and the movements for the mind and the profiles of the pedophiles themselves, I am drawing off of my degree, Psychology.**

**Thanks again to my Beta: The Laughing Fool.  
**

**Please fellow country-folk, lend me your thoughts! Thanks again!**

**-CR  
**


	7. 73914

AU. Brothels are businesses that are privately-owned, but government-mandated in the hopes of decreasing public crime. Anyone can be claimed for service and people can be sent there to disappear. Anyone can use them on a sliding-scale fee. Anything can be done other than murder. It's not a nice way to live. But it's a business. And a place to hold secrets.

* * *

**Warning: Pedophilia, violence, language, mentions of rape and severe abuse against children.**

* * *

******Requisition Class 021**: Client intake and authorization.

* * *

1.

Naruto knelt on the bed next to Sasuke and hesitantly put his hand on the space right above the scar on his neck. "I don't think it should be doing this," he said softly, "I don't know what's wrong."

Sasuke grabbed Naruto's hand and pressed it down against his skin, letting his hand cool the far too warm flesh. "If you don't know anything then shut-up," he said in a hiss.

"It's getting worse," Naruto said, biting his lip, "but…"

He didn't say it out loud, but there was no answer. They needed to ask for help, but scars that got worse… maybe that got people sent to the bad ward. Then they'd never see each other again. And Sasuke wasn't willing to chance that.

"Is it giving you nightmares?" Naruto whispered, leaning in closer. "And that's what's wrong…"

Sasuke had woken up the last several nights shaking badly to find Naruto holding onto him tightly, as though he were trying to keep him in place. He couldn't tell if he was what woke Naruto up or if Naruto just knew when Sasuke needed him, before Sasuke even knew it. But he couldn't remember the nightmares. He couldn't distinguish the memories from each other and he saw his family being killed or else maybe it was him killing his family or being trapped in their blood or being burned by black boiling blood from some monster above him. God, what was it?

"I…" Sasuke began and then he shut his eyes and his mouth and grit his teeth because something was hurting him but he wasn't sure what.

Naruto immediately leaned over him and pressed his cheek against Sasuke's warm one and wrapped careful arms around his shoulders. "It's okay," Naruto whispered.

It wasn't.

Sasuke gripped his shoulders for one hard moment and then suddenly shoved Naruto back and sat up, moving to the edge of the bed and gagging without throwing up. "I'll get an attendant!" Naruto said.

"Shut up!" Sasuke returned harshly. "Shut up and get away from me!"

Naruto's eyes widened for a moment and his expression was clearly hurt before he moved forward and wrapped his arms around Sasuke from behind. "_No_," he said seriously, "I'm gonna take care of you cause we're going to leave, remember? And we'll have a _real_ home. And a garden and we'll have stones for your family and I'll get to read and we'll get to leave whenever we want and we'll never be sad or hurt or anything! Okay? And- and we can have _hundreds_ of scars and no one will care."

Naruto was speaking feverishly into Sasuke's shoulder, but Sasuke felt nothing but ice. "No we won't," he said, "We won't be able to do any of it. You'll die and I'll be here alone. And be all alone forever. I'm so tired of being here."

Naruto tried to tighten his arms around Sasuke, but he couldn't hold any tighter. It kept getting worse.

* * *

2.

Tom looked at Naruto with an expression of slight appraisal. "You're getting older," he said.

"Not yet," Naruto said, "I don't have another birthday for awhile."

"You're beginning to _look_ older," Tom said, frowning. He reached out and caught Naruto's chin in order to better examine his face.

Naruto didn't respond but he felt himself begin to get nervous. He hadn't seen this expression on Tom's face before. Tom was always a nice guy who just loved him so, so much. But now…

Tom pressed the button on the wall and an attendant peeked her head in. "Did you need something?" she asked.

"I need to speak with the doctor," Tom said, "Or the Administrator. Just- someone in charge."

The attendant frowned. "Is something wrong? How can I help you?"

Tom seemed to actually look at the woman now and he smiled. "I'm afraid that there is absolutely _nothing_ that you can do for me. I need to speak to an administrator."

"O-Okay," the woman said slowly and then hesitated. "I think Sherry is around, um, why don't we go to her office. These rooms aren't the most appropriate places for meetings."

Naruto could feel the woman glaring holes into the back of his head as they walked down the hallway with Tom _not_ holding onto him in some way. Naruto tried to think back to something, to see if there was anything that he had done that could have caused such a change, but he couldn't come up with it.

Sherry looked startled to be meeting them, but she gave Tom a professional smile. "What can I do for you?"

Tom glanced at Naruto and then back at Sherry, returning her smile. "He's getting older," Tom said.

Sherry's eyes passed over to Naruto who returned her gaze helplessly. Sherry looked back at Tom. "He is still seven," she said, "Your tastes typically run to the age of nine, according to your past records. He's still got two years until then."

Tom's smile thinned and he continued. "There are various methods, using certain diets and a few drug treatments that can slow this down."

"The workers' diets are set forth in mandate; we can't do anything to change it."

"I remember when he was five and he's already grown too much since then," Tom said, "He's the best little boy you've ever had here and I would be willing to pay quite a lot to see these treatments begun."

"It would make me stop growing up?" Naruto interjected. "I don't wanna stop growing up. I've got to get older."

"No, no you don't, Naruto," Tom said, turning a tight smile towards him, "If you grow up then you can't be my little boy anymore. You'll just be a regular kid. Big and awkward and ugly."

"I know that it is disappointing when one of the little ones start growing up," Sherry said soothingly, "but there isn't anything we can do about it, other than to get replacements."

"Listen," Tom said and there wasn't a hint of friendliness in his voice, "There _are_ things that can be done. There is the recommended diet which will take him down to four-hundred calories. It allows him to still live, but inhibits his growth through a form of malnutrition. And it _does_ work. Then there are the injections of abscisic acid."

"The use of abscisic acid is prohibited in humans," Sherry said, "There are many concerns about-"

"Like I said," Tom interrupted, "I would be willing to pay a very substantial amount of money towards his treatment."

"I wish I could help you, but all I can tell you is to enjoy the rest of the time. Like I've said, you have over two more years with him before he'll become too old for your tastes."

Tom stared at Sherry for a moment and then he grabbed Naruto's arm roughly and thrust him towards Sherry, making Naruto stumble in the process. "I don't want any session with him today. And I need my account re-credited the amount for this session."

* * *

3.

"Is Edgar going to stop loving you once you get too old?" Naruto asked.

Ian's head raised and his gaze shot over to Naruto. The medic work had been amazing. Even if Kabuto was known for being so cruel, his skill was still undeniable. There was absolutely no sign of the damage that Naruto had seen on Ian's face.

"No," Ian said firmly and succinctly. "Edgar loves me. And it's where I'm going to go after I leave here."

"Do you have a family?" Naruto said.

Ian shook his head. "Not a real one. There was a girl that I hung around a lot with when I was living on the streets and I used to call her my sister, but we weren't really related."

"She was your friend?"

"Yeah," Ian said, "I guess so. I… wow, I haven't thought about this in so long. She was a couple years older than me and she called me her little brother and we looked out for each other. Her name was Carrie."

"Is she dead?"

"I… I don't know, actually. She had decided that we should live here because we could both live together and there would be adults to take care of us. But they ended up not needing her here, so I think they transferred her somewhere else."

"You came here on purpose-" Naruto began

"Let's talk about something else," Ian said abruptly.

"Okay," Naruto said and then waited for Ian to redirect the conversation.

Ian took a deep breath and then gave an actual shake of his head. Finally he forced a small smile. "Who is your favorite client?"

* * *

4.

Sasuke's world was full of blood. He was the source somehow. He was either bleeding or he was making others bleed and he couldn't tell which was which, but everything hurt and it felt like his body was trying to break apart, it felt like his very bones were trying to split, to rearrange themselves in the most monstrous perversions of the human form. He was barely even aware of Naruto anymore. Every touch turned into a reverberating agony, shifting through his body, shredding to bits his very bones.

And it was that appointment again. That man, that monster, the one who hurt him more than any of the others, the one that was trying to kill him or change him or do something to _ruin him_.

There was the knife again, biting sharply into his skin and then all of those needles and injections. He wished he could fight back. He wanted to fight and get rid of everyone that had ever hurt him or the people that hurt Naruto.

The sudden peak of pain made his vision whiten and his hands spasmed uncontrollably. He was losing control and felt every single joint in his body radiate with an incredible heat that forcefully locked everything and then his entire body went limp.

He couldn't think anymore.

* * *

5.

"Where's Sasuke?"

The attendant looked down at Naruto who looked back at her expectantly. There was no expression of worry, he had been there far too long and there had been far too many times that the hours ran long at the infirmary. "Is he still with Shizune?" Naruto asked.

The attendant opened her mouth and then closed it again. "Maybe," she finally said.

Naruto stared at her. Attendants never avoided questions, they were far too professional. Mechanized, even. "Let's go check," he said, extending his hand.

"Not right now, Naruto," she said and turned immediately to leave.

Naruto felt fear instantly set in, an internal trembling that crawled painfully through the muscles beneath his skin. He looked frantically around the room and spotted Neji, his eyes dulled to stillness with the haze that Naruto recognized as clinging medication. Naruto raced over to Neji and needed to repeat his question twice before Neji blinked back into reality.

"Was Sasuke in the infirmary?" Naruto asked.

"I don't know," Neji said, raising his hand to allow the heel of his palm to rest on his brow-bone. Drug-induced exhaustion was a hard and heavy fog.

"Please," Naruto pleaded, grabbing his other arm and shaking it.

Neji immediately jerked sharply away and Naruto remembered the kind of clients that Neji worked with. He didn't care and leaned in closer. "Was Sasuke in the infirmary?"

Neji stood up, looking at Naruto with an expression of snobbish hatred. "No."

* * *

6.

Shikaku Nara was certain that the letter wasn't meant to be sent to him.

It had been over a year since his lifelong friend Inoichi Yamanaka had been imprisoned and Shikaku was just now getting any information on what was being done.

He had never really believed that there was any chance that Inoichi was still alive. The government had no problem with eliminating the people that were a danger to society and the government was the entity that got to create the definition of society. And, therefore, what constituted a danger to it.

The letter was sent from a financial institution and stated that the transfer of Inoichi Yamanaka's assets to the Nara family was unable to be processed due to the requisition of all finances by the government. It also stated that the account that had been set up in Ino Yamanaka's name was still open and that he, Shikaku, was now the representative of the account due to the fact that Shikaku had been named as the executor of the estate.

The letter, first and foremost, let Shikaku know that Inoichi was dead. The standard rules of government stated that one year after the death of an individual any unclaimed funds were allowed to be requisitioned to the state treasury.

It also meant that Inoichi had made arrangements for the process after his death and Shikaku knew without any doubt that his family had been named as the guardians for Ino.

The fact that the government had classified the assets as 'unclaimed' meant that Ino had had her rights as an heir taken away. And the only way that she could be stripped of her property rights as a citizen, meant that she had been taken into one of the government programs, and _not_ sent to live with some heretofore unknown relative, as they had been told.

Upon Inoichi's imprisonment, Shikaku and Yoshino had immediately requested that Ino be allowed to live with them. They had been next door neighbors for years and their son Shikamaru and Ino had been very close friends until she had been sent away. So it was time to start getting her back.

* * *

7.

It was a very good-looking man that walked into the building and stopped at the front desk. He waited easily while a regular client made an appointment for the next week with a girl that he knew by name and stated that he wanted alcohol included for that session. The receptionist dutifully recorded the date and wrote an appointment reminder on a little card for the man to take with him. Then he left.

The man who had been waiting then walked up to the counter and didn't bother to smile. He was extremely attractive, but he also seemed quite young and there was an age requirement for use of the brothel.

"Can I help you?" the receptionist asked politely.

The man's gaze flicked quietly around the room and then settled on the receptionist again. "I'd like to see a book of your clients."

"You're looking to make an appointment?" the receptionist asked.

The man simply nodded with no change in expression. His eyes had an odd look to them. They were passive in appearance, but there was almost a look of someone far older than the rest of him would suggest.

"All of our records are computerized. You may use the terminal to filter your search to find the perfect fulfiller. New clients are required to set up an account depositing the funds ahead of time."

The man nodded mutely and pulled out a card and laid it on the counter. "Transfer the necessary amount," he said, staring at the computer screen, his fingers moving quickly as checked the necessary filters and entered further information.

The receptionist only had enough time to pick up the card before the notification popped up on his computer screen that the new client had made his selection. "I need to see your identification," the receptionist said, opening the electronic logbook to process the new account with the transaction.

The man pulled another card from his pocket and placed it lightly on the counter. There were the usual lines indicating a name change via governmental process. His last name was simply a series of numbers, which meant that there was some level of official authority that was to wipe out his history. It seemed strange to the receptionist that a man as young as this one could have such a connection already.

The receptionist easily transferred two appointments worth of deposit and scheduled the man's selection for an appointment the following week. He wrote an appointment reminder and returned the two cards to the man along with the reminder. The man took them wordlessly, glanced at the date and time listed on the reminder, nodded, and left.

The receptionist calendared the appointment and wrote 'Itachi 73914' as the new client.

* * *

8.

Naruto couldn't sleep.

He was exhausted at his appointments the next day and was almost completely unresponsive. Every time that an assistant came to escort him to an appointment, he would tiredly ask for information about Sasuke and with each brush off, he became more and more certain that Sasuke was dead.

After two days he refused to go to appointments anymore. He struggled hard against the attendants and then fought against all clients violently, repeating to them every nasty name he had ever been called. More than a few clients called in an attendant and irritatedly canceled the appointment.

* * *

9.

Lauren Harper waited in the room for her appointment with Naruto. She had a worn quilt with a spread of blue geometric patterns folded neatly in her arms and she shifted nervously. The walls of the room were almost soundproof, but she was able to hear the shouting before the door opened to reveal a flustered looking attendant holding a violently angry Naruto.

It startled Lauren to see Naruto so upset. "What's wrong with him?" she asked the attendant as the woman set him on the bed.

"He's been having some trouble lately," the attendant said, "Do you still want your appointment?"

Lauren nodded and the attendant nodded in return and quickly left the room. Naruto watched the door.

"I brought something for you," Lauren said after a moment. "I thought maybe you wanted a blanket… in case you get cold at night…"

She had made the quilt for her son and had nightmares of him being alone and cold and in pain. She knew that someone had dumped his body somewhere and that he was probably nothing more than pieces of a skeleton, but she wished that she could at least be able to have a coffin for him. She'd cover him with the quilt and kiss the wooden lid.

She knew that they'd never find his body.

Naruto slowly turned to look at her. "I hate you," he said.

Lauren froze.

"I hate you. You're a horrible bitch. You're stupid and pointless and no one loves you. I wish you were dead," he said.

"I- I brought this for you," Lauren said, her eyes filling with tears. "Colin."

* * *

10.

The Block was empty except for a couple of girls in the older range who were busy discussing their imminent move into the older category and Block switch, and one of the new six-year-olds taking a nap in her room, and Ino and Naruto.

Naruto's room was dark, and having the lights out was considered to be a sign that the occupant didn't want anyone bothering them. Sasuke had been gone for six days.

Hinata hadn't been in the Block lately, she had been receiving some extremely severe injuries that required overnight healing in the infirmary. Ino had been requesting medication to make her sleep at nights. There were some things that kept coming to her mind that she needed to hide from so she tried to sleep as much as possible.

But she had a two-hour block of free time until her next appointment and she needed to be interactive for that particular client, so she wasn't allowed any of the sedatives that she kept asking for during the days.

Naruto had more free-time than ever before. His change in behavior made him very unappealing to his regular clients, but they didn't want to start scheduling him for the more sadistic variety. Such a move would undo all of the training that they had been investing in him, and they wanted to be absolutely certain that the switch was necessary before taking that step.

The thoughts that kept creeping to her mind started overwhelming her again and Ino wanted the distraction that Naruto could always give. She walked into his room and it startled her to see him sitting on the floor. The lights were still off, but there was a dim light that filtered through the doorway and it was enough for Ino to see him.

"Hey Naruto," Ino said, stepping into the room, before stopping suddenly.

Naruto was holding a cloth against his arm and Ino could see red beginning to soak through it.

"I'm never going to see a garden."

"What happened? Why didn't that get healed?" Ino asked, standing up to press the button for the attendant.

"I don't want it fixed."

Ino looked over her shoulder at him, hovering by the button. "Why not?"

"I'm never going to see a garden."

"What's wrong?"

Naruto was the caretaker of the group. He could comfort anyone, he was always happy, his clients never hated him.

"I want a home."

Ino turned around to face him, though she stayed by the wall. "I think you need to go to see Shizune."

"I hate it here," he said, speaking slowly. "I want a home. I want a garden. I want to see the ocean. I want parents. I want _Sasuke_. I want to be able to do something. I want a hundred scars that no one will care about."

Ino looked at him for a moment and then she quickly scanned the room and spotted where Naruto had broken apart a toy figurine and uncovered a sharp edge. There were a few drops of blood by it.

She left the call-button on the wall and walked over to sit by Naruto. "Let me see," she said, reaching out to take hold of his arm and examine it. He let her remove the cloth and see the rough cut he had pressed into his skin.

Ino stared at it for a moment and said, "My father is dead."

She used the cloth to dab at the cut, but the bleeding was already slowing and neither of them were alarmed at the sight of blood anymore. "My mom has always been dead. My dad is dead too. And I think my friends must dead. 'Cause no one has come to get me. No one has even tried. Hinata's parents tried to get her. No one has tried to get me."

"I want to go home," she said.

"You don't have one," Naruto said.

Ino sat next to Naruto and raised her fingers to her mouth, biting a nail, before speaking quietly. "I think we had a garden in my house."

Naruto didn't say anything and Ino didn't look at him. "We had a lot of plants. And flowers. They all have different names too. We had azaleas, enkianthus, hydrangeas, hollyhock, clematis, shaku-yaku, and roses," Ino paused to take a slow, painful breath and continued. "The azaleas were pink and red and white and they have petals that are soft like an old woman's hands. They don't bloom for very long, but they're pretty anyway.

"Enkianthus is really hard to grow and the leaves are amazing. The petals are completely white with red lines that spider along the white and they're upside down like little bells. The hollyhock…" Ino swallowed hard and she rubbed one of her hands against an eye, "Hollyhock can be yellow or pink, red or purple. It can bloom in conditions that will kill other plants… um…" Ino took a couple of seconds to push back more tears.

"Clematis is like a baby, because it's easy to break until it's several years old. The one in our house was as old as me. My daddy got it when I was born. A friend of his gave them to… The shaku-yaku has a million petals in every blossom. And roses…can be any color. We were growing chrysanthemums for the first time when… and maybe now they're all gone…"

Ino buried her head into her hands and continued speaking through her fingers, "It always made the house smell good. And if you shut your eyes and spun around then it would all mix together until you couldn't tell which scent was which," her voice was steadily breaking, "And it showed all the different colors so you didn't need to draw them."

Naruto gave Ino a violently sudden and tight hug. Ino was startled for a moment but then began crying in earnest into his shoulder. Naruto grabbed Ino's hand and started leading her over to the drawing supplies. "We'll draw pictures of them. That way we'll have them until we can see them. And then you won't forget them. And I'll get to see them too," he said firmly.

* * *

TBC

**A/N.**

**Hey everyone, so it's been quite awhile, hasn't it? I've been having some health problems of the worst variety, which is keeping me occupied and broke most of the time, but I finally managed to get this one written. It was beta-ed by the Laughing Fool, though I think she was too busy reading to do much editing. Please forgive me of my mistakes. (Just a warning- I am a huge ShikaIno fan, so just a warning. Please be as polite about pairings as always in this).**

**Anyways, my health problems aren't of the variety that are going to go away, but I'm hoping to keep up a steadier pace of updating.**

**Any guesses as to anything? Chapter dedications to the winners. Thanks!**

**This one took a lot of work. Review please.  
**

**-CR**


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